


Just Give Up

by HerMajestyEvie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Character Death, Demon Blood, Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Demon Sam Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Heavy Angst, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lucifer Possessing Castiel (Supernatural), Lucifer's Cage, M/M, Mental Torture, Michael Possessing Dean Winchester, Physical Torture, Post-Season/Series 13, Psychological Torture, Sam Winchester in Lucifer's Cage, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Season/Series 14 Speculation, Series/season 14, Team Free Will, Temporary Character Death, The Cage, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:03:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerMajestyEvie/pseuds/HerMajestyEvie
Summary: Dean is possessed by Michael, fighting for control of his body and mind, struggling to keep track of who he is.Sam is doing all he can to find his brother, whilst Cas scours the world for Michael.Michael wants to break Dean, and he'll do whatever it takes to crush his vessel's will.And Jack... there's something wrong with Jack.





	1. "Kill him, Dean."

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I'm sorry.  
> Secondly, the above line is a lie.  
> Thirdly.... no I am actually sorry this time.
> 
> Begins after the series 13 finale, but before series 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so this fic was started before s14 aired, and so it doesn't comply with the majority of canon. BUT anything written from after episodes began airing may contain certain factors of the plot. Hope you enjoy!

“Give up,” Michael sneered, looking into the hotel mirror, Dean Winchester looking back at him, utterly livid. 

“Never, you backstabbing son of a bitch,” the hunter snarled, his hands clenched into fists, but only within his mind. 

He hated this. He hated Michael. But, most importantly, he hated himself for letting this happen. 

He had vowed, years ago, never to say yes, never to let Michael in, to save the humans his way. But here he was, simply a meatsuit for the archangel set to destroy the planet, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

He had tried, for days or weeks he couldn’t tell, to break free of Michael’s control, to even have the ability to twitch a muscle, but where Sam had succeeded, he had not, and Michael was on track to destroy the world and make way for his own paradise. 

But he refused to give up. 

“Why?” Michael asked, frustrated with the mudmonkey who refused to learn his place. “Why keep fighting when it is pointless, when you have no hope?” He started pacing, Dean watching his body move in the mirror, but not being the one to move. 

Dean clenched his teeth, grinding them against each other, recalling images of Sam and Cas, the two people he cared for more than anything, and then Mom, Bobby, Charlie, and even Jack. His family. 

“Oh I see,” Michael said, a small laugh escaping his - Dean’s - lips, so unnerving to the hunter since he would never let out that noise himself. 

Yet another reminder that he had lost. 

No. He hadn’t lost. He was still fighting. He could still win. 

“No. You can’t.” Michael smiled, his finger against his temple, tapping lightly. “I’m in your head, Dean, and I know all about you. I know how much you hate yourself, and how much you want to end your pitiful existence. I know that you sacrifice yourself at every opportunity because you think your life has no worth.” 

“Stop,” Dean said, but knowing that Michael had no reason to listen to him. 

“I know that you have failed everyone you love over and over again, and that you are scared that they will leave you the moment they have the chance.”   
“ _ Stop it!”  _ Dean snarled, his temper showing through the careful mask he had tried to maintain. 

“You have nothing to live for, Dean, so just give up and stop fighting me!” The crystal chandelier overhead smashed, the only light now coming from the open floor to ceiling windows, a faint breeze blowing through them. 

Michael hadn’t let Dean out to see the world much, and only for a few minutes at a time, but he always surfaced in the same luxurious hotel room, with crystal vases on marble table tops, open spaces and a disused four poster bed, white sheets crisp and clean on top. 

No damp, no peculiar stains on a musky carpet, no thin walls letting every questionable noise into the room.

Michael had a taste for luxury, it seemed. 

“I will never stop fighting you, because I have people worth fighting for, and I will kill you, you goddamn son of a bitch!” Dean roared, every muscle in his body tense, spit flying from his mouth. 

“No,” Michael replied, his voice deceptively soft. “You won’t kill me.” 

“You’ll kill us,” a voice said from behind him.  A beautiful voice he loved. 

Sam, the demon killing knife in hand, and a hateful expression on his face.

He was back inside his head, shoved from the surface, back in a huge, empty room made of nothing but white walls. The room that had always been empty except for him, but now held his brother too. 

“You’ve been killing me since the day you pulled me back from Stanford, dragging me across the country from hunt to hunt in an attempt to make yourself feel like less of a failure.”  

“No, Sammy,” Dean whispered, dread building in his gut. 

“Not Sam? What about me, then, Dean?” Cas asked, and Dean whirled around to find the trench coat wearing angel standing at the ready, his angel blade drawn, pointing at the floor. “What about the angel you use when it is convenient, and throw away when you’re done?” 

“No, Cas. I would never -” He started, a lump forming in his throat, but Sam interrupted him before he could finish. 

“But you did. You killed us, and now we will kill you.” 

The pair advanced on Dean, weaponless and powerless as they pushed him to the floor, Sam driving the knife through his shoulder and landing a punch to his jaw, before Cas put the other blade through his thigh, kicking him in the ribs until he felt something crack. 

“No, please,” Dean moaned, coughing up blood as they continues to beat him, breaking every part of him until he was begging for death. 

And then he was whole once again, standing back in the centre of the room, but this time the demon knife in hand. 

“Dean,” Sam said softly, kneeling behind him, looking at the floor. “Dean, don’t do this, please,” he moaned, not daring to raise his head, but tears clearly streaming down his face. 

“Kill him, Dean.” Dean spun to find his dad standing there, his face expectant, waiting for Dean to follow through on the order.

“What? No!” He replied, throwing the knife to the floor, but his dad picked it up, and he put it back into his hand. 

“Kill him, Dean,” John said, his eyes boring into Dean’s. “You failed to save him, so kill him.” 

Dean turned to face Sam, who finally raised his head, revealing black pits where hazel eyes had once been. 

Demon eyes. 

“Dean, please, don’t do this,” Sam cried, crying as he watched his brother and father. 

“Do it, son. Kill the monster,” John whispered into his ear, closing his hand around Dean’s, keeping the knife in his hand, and guiding him forward so that he was close enough to slice his brother’s throat. 

“No.” 

“Do it, Dean.” 

“No.” 

“Too late,” his dad hissed, and Dean felt warm, sticky blood spill over his hand, his brother’s throat sparking as he cut it, and his eyes returning to their normal hazel, before closing for the last time. 

“No! Sammy! No!” Dean cried, collapsing to the floor to hold his brother’s lifeless corpse, before it disappeared into dust. 

But the blood remained, pooled over the floor, and coating his hands and clothes. 

He stood, realising that silent tears had been streaming down his face, but he dared not wipe them away. 

Not with his brother’s still warm blood on his hands. 

“Why?” He asked the empty room, his voice catching, his shoulders slumped. 

“Because he’s a monster, Dean, and monsters must be killed,” his father said, and he looked around for him, but it was only his voice within his head, taunting him after all these years. 

“Not Sammy, not my Sammy. He’s not a monster,” Dean said, his fists shaking in rage, but also horror at what he’d just done. 

“Yes, he is,” John replied, still invisible. 

“Yes, I am, Dean,” Sam said, and Dean once again looked into his brother’s black eyes, blood dripping down his chin, a drained demon body at his feet, his body shaking with all the power thrumming through him from the demon blood. 

“Please, Dean,” Sam cried, looking at him with those black orbs. 

“Kill him, Dean,” his dad demanded, and Dean found the knife in his hand, which his dad helped him to thrust through his brother’s chest. 

Again and again, Dean killed his brother. 

Again and again, he was ordered to do so by his father. 

Again and again, he was left with the blood on his hands and clothes, until his whole world was made of blood, and he no longer had to wait for his father’s order, and he just killed his demon brother the moment he appeared. 

He didn’t care if his brother was begging or killing, he always killed him. Every. Single. Time. 

Until it wasn’t his brother in front of him. 

It was Cas.

Castiel stood there, wearing the same suit and trench coat as always, expressionless as he looked Dean in the eyes. It was as if Dean was looking at a statue of the angel, who didn’t even look as if he was breathing. 

“It was all a lie, you know,” Michael began, stepping around Dean, before going over the Cas and standing behind him, his hand on the angel’s shoulder. “Everything that Castiel said or did for you was a lie. He never cared for you.” The blood in the room cleared, excluding that that coated Dean. 

“You’re lying.” Dean growled back, his voice low and menacing, but if his brother was a monster, what was stopping Castiel from being one too?

His brother, the boy he had raised, was nothing more than demonic scum. It wouldn’t surprise him if everyone he’d ever loved was also a monster. 

_ No! This is Cas. He’s not a monster!  _

“Are you sure, Dean?” Michael asked, amused by Dean’s thoughts. Every thought th hunter had about his brother was now tainted with the belief that Sam was a monster, a demon, in need of being put down, but he wasn’t even considering the idea that Castiel could also be a monster. 

“Oh, I see.” Michael said, realisation filling his - Dean’s - face. “You actually care for him. More than that, you  _ love  _ him,” the angel taunted, stepping around Castiel so that he was moving towards Dean, grasping his bloody face. “You always had that nagging idea in your head that your brother could become evil. - or, as you would say, go darkside - but no matter what your precious angel does, you could never hate him. You could never betray him, because you. Love. Him.”

“Shut up.” Dean growled. 

“You love this traitorous piece of filth.” Michael continued. 

“Shut up!” Dean yelled, pushing Michael away, forcing him to stumble back. 

Dean raised the demon blade, which morphed into an angel blade, and he brought it down so that it was poised to go through Michael’s - his - chest. 

Only for Michael to disappear, and Cas to be impaled on the end of the blade, his grace burning out of his vessel, and he fell to the floor with his wings burned into the white floor. 

“No.” Dean whispered, terrified of what was to come. “No.” 

“So this is what I flew through hell for.” Cas said, circling Dean, Cas’ empty vessel gone, but the wings still remaining. “For a worthless piece of humanity, too full of self hatred and alcohol to be of any use to anyone.” The blue eyes that had once been friendly were now nothing but cold. 

“Don’t say that to me.” Dean whispered, looking at Cas as he moved, both of them holding an angel blade. “Not you.”

“I should have told you all this the moment we met, but I had to be the good soldier and guide the famous Dean Winchester, groom him so that he would say yes.” He stopped his circling, the two men facing each other. Dean tried not to hear the lies, but they weren’t completely wrong. 

He  _ was  _ full of self hatred. 

He  _ was  _ only going from drink to drink. 

He was useless. 

“Tell me, Dean, when did you decide to trust me? Was it before or after I let precious Sammy out of the panic room, so that he could release Lucifer from the cage?” 

“Stop it.” 

“Or was after I went behind your back to open Purgatory, and worked with Crowley for a year to do so?” 

“Shut up.”   
“Maybe it started when I tore apart your brother’s mind, or when I let Lucifer ride around in my vessel, releasing him back into the world.”

“You shut your mouth, Michael.” Dean roared, knowing that his Cas would never say any of this. 

“But how do you know that, Dean?” Cas answered, cocking his head to the side the way he always did, his eyes furrowing together in confusion. Normally he would look adorable when he did so, but now it was in a menacing way. “Can you read minds like I can? Did it never occur to you that I was always in your head, behaving exactly as you wanted me to behave, so that you would feel like  _ someone  _ could love you of their own free will, and not because they were forced to, like precious little demonic Sammy.” 

“YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Dean roared, his temper overcoming him as he went to push Cas away, and he turned to run as far from the angel as he could when the angel stumbled back. 

Only to walk straight into the tip of Cas’ raised bade, which pierced his heart. 

“Oh Dean,” Cas whispered into his ear, holding the dying hunter close as he died, “you really know nothing about us angels.” 

And the first piece of doubt began to worm its way into the hunter’s mind. 

 

Xxx

 

Sometimes it was Cas, taunting him, listing off every betrayal he had caused. Other times he was possessed by Lucifer, pushing him about until he got tired of Dean’s pain, and then kill the hunter, getting more and more creative each times. 

But Dean only started to fight back when the Castiel full of Leviathan that stood before him, and he had a machete in his hand. 

He had tried, really tried, not to attack Cas, to suffer through everything that the angel said to him ,to simply lose himself in his mind, and not the man he loved, but he couldn’t stop himself from beheading the creature that had cost him Bobby. 

Dean had tried to talk to Cas, to make him act like he normally would, but he had died too many times to keep putting up a fight, and the angel hadn’t even reacted when Dean had whispered the long silence words, “I love you, Cas.” 

The angel always answered before killing him. 

“It’s a shame I don’t.”

“You gullible fool.”   
“Who could love a piece of filth like you?” 

“I did my job well, then.” 

And a bit of Dean would fall away every time, but he never truly broke. 

Until it was Bobby at his feet, and Cas pointing a gun at his head, preparing to pull the trigger. 

“Please, Dean.” Bobby had said, fear filling the old man’s face, waiting for Dean to save him, and Dean couldn’t leave the man who had become his father to his fate. 

So he had raised the machete, and he had cut off Cas’ head, choosing Bobby over Cas. 

“So you’re finally learning,” Michael said, appearing behind Bobby, the older man disappearing without a word. “At the end of the day, Castiel will always be the cause of everyone you love’s demise, and the only person who can stop him, is you.” 

“He’s not a monster. He would never do this to anyone.” Dean whispered, but he had stopped believing those words. 

“Are you sure?” Michael asked, before disappearing once again, and Dean turned to find Cas, standing before a kneeling Charlie, preparing to smite her. 

“Please, Dean.” Charlie whispered, waiting for the man she saw as a brother to save her. 

And Dean did, Cas’ empty vessel falling to the floor, another set of wings scorched into the floor. 

Sometimes it was his mum, other times Bobby or Charlie, Kevin appearing from time to time, and always Cas about to kill them. 

Until the day that it was Sam at Cas’ feet, his brother’s hazel eyes begging to be saved, for Dean to do his job as the big brother and protect Sammy. 

Dean moved out of memory now, killing Castiel in a burst of blinding grace, before pulling his brother to his feet. 

And he plunged the angel blade through his chest too, saving Sam from himself. 

Just another demon, in need of being put down like the monster he was, along with the so-called angel. 


	2. Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack

Time and time again, Cas would threaten someone Dean loved, someone in his family.

TIme and time again, Dean would try to save them.

Time and time again, Dean was left with another pair of angel wings, and sometimes the body of his loved one.

At first, Michael had been content to let Castiel simply threaten the chosen loved one, but he could tell that Dean was growing numb to his actions, simply acting without thinking, and not taking anything in, because, in his mind, in order to cope, he wasn’t seeing Castiel, just another monster who he could defeat with ease to save his family.

He seemed to have forgotten that Castiel was an angel of the Lord, more powerful than any ghost or werewolf he’d ever come across, and they were very hard to stop.

So soon enough, Dean was holding Charlie in his arms as she bled out, Cas having stabbed her through her stomach - a slow and painful death.

“No, Charlie, please, not again.” Dean cried, all too familiar with the memory of Charlie, alone, lying in a bath as she died.

But she took her last breath, and Castiel laughed when the light left her eyes.

Dean, however, was simmering with rage, and he plunged his angel blade through Castiel’s chest.

And then the angel was ten metres away, his mum at his feet, and Cas’ hand on her head, the angel preparing to smite her.

Castiel didn’t turn as Dean lunged forward, hungry for revenge, and he pierced the angel’s heart from behind as his mum’s eyes burnt out with a blast of grace.

Castiel’s wings ended up burnt onto Dean’s chest, a reminder of his failure to save his family, and Michael didn’t bother removing them when her sent another torture Dean’s way, wanting the hunter to remember how helpless he was to save his family.

He needed to learn that he was helpless, worthless.

Only then would he submit, Michael thought.

 

xxx

 

“Dean.” Michael said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder, Dean kneeling on the ground, staring at the blood on his hands and then the blackened floor. “Why do you still fight me?”

_Charlie, Kevin, Mum, Bobby, Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack, Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack._

He kept repeating the list of names, his family, even Jack appearing from time to time in his mind, and Michael listened to them all, pleased that two names were more absent than not.

_Sam,_ Dean thought, but paused for a second, before continuing the train of thought, _is a monster._

_Cas… Castiel… is a liar, and needs to be put down to save my family._

Michael had known that Dean wouldn’t take to his lessons as easily as he’d hoped, since Dean loved his family so fiercely, but he had to learn his place.

At Michael’s feet.

His sword, for him to wield how and when he wanted.

He had wondered for a time as to why Dean was quicker to see Sam as a monster than Castiel, but a trip down memory lane revealed all pretty quickly; a part of him had always questioned how much he could trust Sam, whereas he’d never had any soul deep distrust of Cas.

He’d trusted Cas for a long time, and he’d loved him for most of it, whether he consciously knew so or not. That wasn’t something you could just remove so quickly.

Michael, too lost in his own thoughts and plans, didn’t register the silence immediately.

He didn’t want silence. He wanted Dean to answer him. It didn’t matter that he could hear the boy’s thoughts; if he asked him something, he wanted an answer, and he would tear him apart until he learnt so.

“Dean,” he repeated, much firmer, “why do you still fight me?”

He wondered whether the boy would answer, or if he would have to beat the answer from him, but Dean eventually spoke.

“Because you are just another monster, and it’s my job to hunt you.”

The words ingrained into him from childhood.

Monster? Kill it. End of story.

“Oh Dean, I am not a monster.” Michael said, crouching down so that he could put his fingers under the breaking man’s chin, lifting it so that he had no choice but to look at Michael. “I am simply doing my Father’s will.” He took on a patronizing tone. “You will understand soon enough, but free will is but a myth, created by foolish humans who wanted to make their lives seem more important. You are my true vessel, and you would have always said yes, whether in a day or a decade, but you were destined for me, and you need to understand that. There is no point in fighting me, because this is how it was meant to be.”

Dean was breaking, but he wasn’t broken yet, and he fixed Michael with his signature cocky grin, and hoped for the best.

“Bite me, ass hole.” He said, and Michael stood abruptly, disgust evident on his face.

“I see that you haven’t learnt yet, then.” The angel remarked, and turned to walk off.

Dean began to repeat the cycle of names in his head once again, focusing on each one so that he could remember for whom he fought, and why he was going to continue to fight until he died.

_Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack, Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack, Charlie, Mum, Kevin, Bobby, Jack._

He squeezed his eyes shut as a horrific ringing filled his ears, before opening his eyes to find Cas in front of him once again, his brother besides the angel, both of them looking as healthy as they always had, but Dean knew what truly lay beneath their skin.

Michael hadn’t had success so far. He’d hoped that taking away the hunter’s main reasons for living, for fighting, would make him break, but he saw the error of his ways now.

Because Dean had been broken ever since he ran from a burning house with his brother in his arms, when his life was no longer dependant on his own happiness, but on his younger brother’s.

Dean had neglected himself time and time again, destroying himself over the years, and there was only so many times a person could be torn apart before they couldn’t be put back together again.

Michael didn’t need to break Dean, because the man was already broken beyond belief.

The archangel just needed to remind the man of how destroyed he was, and then he would belong to him completely.

“Do you remember me Dean?” Sam asked him, and Dean got to his feet, going for a knife, only to find himself weaponless. “Do you remember how you failed me Dean?”

“You aren’t my brother.” Dean scowled. His brother had died in Cold Oak. This was a demon, sent from hell to torment him.

“I was your brother, until you let me die.” Sam continued, and his eyes flashed black.

Michael didn’t believe in physical pain, because mental pain was so much worse.

Injuries heal, and you move on from them, but you can’t escape your mind.

xxx

Michael had tried, time and time again, to focus on paradise, and on removing the stain on the Earth known as humanity, but his grace wouldn’t work properly in his vessel without Dean’s full cooperation. 

Dean was his sword, for him to wield, but he had to be completely willing to let Michael control him. 

He had to be a weapon, to do only as commanded by Michael, and nothing more. 

He had to be the sword, and he refused to cooperate. It was driving Michael insane.  _ Why can’t he just give in and do as commanded?  _ Michael thought to himself, for the billionth time.  _ Why must my sword have such a firm belief in free will?  _

“Because it’s all I have left, featherduster.” Dean replied, slumped against the wall, looking so tired that Michael almost pitied the man. 

Almost. 

Because Dean would only be able to hear Michael’s thoughts directed towards him if he was letting Michael in. 

Submitting.  _ At last,  _ Michael thought, testing the man before him to see just how far he had come. 

But Dean didn’t reply, or show any indication of hearing the archangel. Knowing he wouldn’t get the full story from the broken righteous man, Michael dove inside Dean’s thoughts. 

_ Alone. Useless hunter. Helpless. Can’t save anyone. Not even my family. Useless. Worthless. Failure. Always a failure. Couldn’t save Sam. Couldn’t save mum. Couldn’t see past Cas’ lies. I broke it. I broke them. I break everything. Alone. Alone. Alone.  _

Brushing aside the top thoughts, Michael finally found the one thought at the centre of all Dean’s pain:  _ Maybe it’s time I just gave up. _

_ Perfect,  _ Michael thought, his lips curling into a cold sneer. 

“What?” Dean asked, raising his head slightly, letting the one word echo into the expanse of the destroyed room. “What could possibly be so perfect?”

“Oh Dean,” Michael crooned, dropping to his knees, with no intent to answer the man’s question, “you shouldn’t call me that. Master will do.” 

“You must be shitting yourself now, chuckles.” Dean replied, his heart not in the words. 

“I could make all this pain go away.” Michael continued, knowing that in time Dean would come to accept his lack of free will. 

He already was, afterall. 

“The answer’s still no.” Dean replied. 

“You are a hunter, but you are no use in here. What if I could make all the monsters disappear, and I could save the ones who really deserve it, giving paradise to the humans who haven’t done anything wrong, and were simply born into a cruel world?” 

“I’d tell you to go screw yourself.” Dean shot back, but temptation took root in his mind. 

Him and Sam had tried to get rid of all the demons, but he had stopped his brother from completing the ritual to save him. 

To save a demon. 

What kind of a hunter was he, if he threw everything away for a piece of demonic scum? A useless one. 

What kind of a hunter was he, if he was unable to see who was real, and who was a traitor? A worthless one. 

What kind of a person was he, if he couldn’t even save his family? A failure. 

_ Maybe I should just give up.  _ “Dean, what kind of a hunter would you be if you didn’t take the only chance at removing all the evil in the world, and save the people who truly deserve it?”  _ A monster. I would be a monster. No better than what I used to hunt. Monster. I’m not a monster.  _

Michael gave him time for the question to sink in, listening to each thought, before asking again. 

“Dean, what kind of a monster would you be if you let evil roam free, and did nothing about it?”  _ I’m not a monster. I can’t be a monster. I am not a monster. I am a hunter. I am a Winchester. I am Dean WInchester, and I save people. I hunt things. I kill monsters. I kill all monsters no matter what it costs. _

“Dean, will you submit, and help me to kill every last piece of evil in this world, and remake it with no monsters, and no humans that would dare do others harm?” 

_ Yes.  _

“Yes.” Dean replied at long last, his voice cracking on the single word that held so much power. 

“Yes,  _ Master. _ ” Michael stressed, and Dean glowered at him before speaking, weary from all his fighting, all his suffering, all his pain. 

“Yes, Master.” Dean echoed, and Michael gave him a cruel smile as Dean felt invisible chains weigh him down, curling around his neck, wrists, and ankles, tethering him to the archangel, making him nothing more than a weapon to be used. 

“Then get up, my sword,” Dean stood, his body reacting to Michael’s command without his brain needing to do anything. “We have a world to burn.” 

_ Such a naive little hunter,  _ MIchael thought, sending the thought Dean’s way as the man saw through his eyes for the first time in a month.  _ You thought that I would let them all live, right? Well you should know that all humans wish harm on one another at some point, and so they are flawed.  _ Dean looked through his eyes that weren’t his eyes, down at the bodies littered around his feet. 

Human bodies, their eyes burned out of their skulls, mouths agape in a silent scream. 

A whole town’s worth of people, innocent and guilty, murdered by Michael. 

_ Oh, God,  _ Dean thought, and Michael chuckled. 

_ God is gone, Dean, and all his humans must die with him.  _ Dread coiled in Dean’s core, but he couldn’t do anything except look through the eyes that Michael controlled, and think thoughts that Michael could hear.  _ And when they are dead, I will break open the portal between this world and mine, and I will create paradise for my angels, and my angels alone.  _

Dean wanted to rage against Michael, to tear him apart, but one order from the archangel and he was cam. 

“Be quiet, Sword, and do nothing to distract me. Keep still.” Michael let his wings spread wide, beating them so that he was in the middle of New York, unnoticed in the bustle of people pushing past him on the pavement. “But I will do one thing for you, Sword.” Michael continued. “We will kill your brother, and your angel, and I will let you take control when we do.” 

Dean couldn’t reply, but Michael felt his pleasure at the thought of killing the ones he wrongly thought had betrayed him.


	3. "Hey Sammy."

Michael went about his work, ordering Dean to remain silent, forcing him to return to the killing room if his emotions began to rise, and the man learnt not to care the more he was sent to the white room. 

_ I’m going to have to rename it,  _ Michael thought after one particularly bloody session, when the whole room had turned crimson, not a speck of white in sight. 

He had left Dean in there for some time when he began to kill his way through America, knowing that the hunter would feel distressed at the sight of innocents dying, but soon an almost constant tugging in his gut alerted him to someone trying to find him with magic. 

He had an idea who it was, but needed to check regardless.

Following the pull, but remaining invisible, Michael soon found himself in the Winchesters’ bunker, Sam standing in the middle of the dungeon, Castiel, his mum, and the nephilim either side of him. The red haired witch was there, too, with her grimoire open, her eyes purple as she chanted a spell to try and find Michael, and so Dean. 

Smiling, Michael flew away, knowing that he was more than capable of blocking the witch’s spells, and he could always kill her if not. 

Although, he had promised Dean on revenge on his traitorous family, and 

He returned to the white room, silently watching Dean as he slaughtered demons, his brother commanding them from atop a pedestal the far side of the room, until the hunter fought his way to his brother and plunged his sword through his chest, a grin on his face when his brother finally died. 

“Come here, Sword.” Michael commanded when Dean was done, and Dean strode forward, dropping to his knees in front of Michael, his head bowed. 

No thoughts entered his mind. 

A puppet. 

A weapon. 

His Sword. 

“Do you want revenge on your family?” He asked, letting his hold on the man’s voice go for a moment. 

“Yes, Master.” 

“Will you do whatever it takes to kill them?”    
“Yes, Master.” 

“Do you want to take them now?” 

“Yes, Master.” 

“Get up.” Michael ordered, stepping back. 

Dean stood. 

“The stage is yours, Sword, and you can do whatever you like to kill them, so long as they die.” Michael said, and Dean suddenly found himself in complete control of his body, his chest rising and falling with breaths, and the light almost too bright in his eyes as he looked around. 

He was right outside the bunker door. Stealing a deep breath, he exhaled as he knocked on the door, waiting for his ‘brother’ to open it up. 

He couldn’t feel Michael inside him, and he knew that the archangel wouldn’t lend him any power, so he had to find a way of overpowering the angel, and get hold of a weapon that could kill his brother at the same time, all the while avoiding the witch. 

And he had to save his mum and Jack from the monsters within the walls of the bunker; monsters they weren’t even aware of. 

He could try to win them over, but they could also go running to the others, and then it would all be over before it began, and Michael would take his revenge from him. 

Plan after plan ran through his head, but the heavy door opened up to reveal the sasquatch demon pointing a gun at him. 

Dean immediately relaxed his stance, plastering a weary smile on his face, trying to appear as weak and broken as he had been before Michael. 

For all that he disliked the archangel, and hated his actions, he couldn’t deny the fact that being with Michael felt like he was whole for the first time in his life. 

“Dean.” Sam breathed, and Dean took a good look at his brother, with his dishevelled hair and crumpled, dirty shirt. He had heavy bags and dark circles around his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved in a while, since a beard had grown on his face. A very prominent smell of booze surrounded him, but his head seemed clear as he kept the gun trained on Dean, so he wasn’t currently drunk. 

If Dean still saw this mas as his brother, he would have cared and fixed his brother up. 

But this wasn’t his brother. 

And he had a part to play. 

“Hey, Sammy.” Dean replied, forcing his eyes to tear up slightly, trying to play on his brother’s heart, and the man’s hands shook slightly as he slowly lowered the gun. 

_ If it’s Dean, I can’t shoot him,  _ Sam thought,  _ and if it’s Michael, we’re dead anyway.  _

“Can I come in?” Dean asked, slumping his shoulders, and shifting his weight slightly, before looking back up at his brother. 

Sam hesitated for a second, but Dean could have laughed when he finally spoke. 

“Of course, Dean.” 

And Dean stepped into the bunker. 

Castiel, Mary, Jack, and Rowena, were assembled at the base of the stairs, Castiel’s eyes watching him carefully, searching for any trace of Michael as the brothers descended, but satisfied when he found none. 

Michael had concealed his grace from the world, after all. 

“Dean.” Mary breathed, taking a step forward, but hesitating slightly. However, Cas nodded to Sam, and Mary, watching the exchange, took that as the sign to continue forward, gripping her son in a tight embrace. “How did you get away?” She asked, as casually as possible, but the tension in the air told Dean otherwise; they weren’t convinced he was really himself. 

Yet. 

He took a moment to reply, too relieved that he had his mum, his real, living mum, back. It was only a matter of time, though, before Castiel or Sam would come and take her from him. 

He would have to act fast. 

“I don’t know.” Dean replied, finally, forcing himself not to show disgust as he looked Cas in the eye over his mother’s shoulder. “Michael - he took control, and the next thing I know I’m outside the bunker.” He let his words sink in, taking the time to look around at everyone. 

They were all clearly exhausted, Sam having grown a light beard, his mum and Rowena looking slightly disheveled. 

Castiel was tense, but he required no sleep, so it would have been worry that tired him. Well, more like excellent acting, since Cas had never really cared for him. Michael had showed him that. 

Jack was healed, thankfully, likely by Cas, but he was clearly wrecked too. 

Dean would help them. 

“But that makes no sense.” Castiel remarked, furrowing his brow as he looked to everyone. 

Dean didn’t miss the fact that they had left him a little too much space. 

“No, it doesn't, but I’m not complaining.” Dean said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. 

“Well then, deary,” Rowena said, rising from her chair at the illuminated table, spells and ingredients spread out around her, all of them likely to have been wasted searching for Dean and Michael. “Do me a favour and give me a wee bit of warning if you decide to try and kill us all.” She said, giving him a promising smile as she perched on the table, paper crinkling beneath her. 

“I can assure you that I won’t kill you. That’s Sammy’s job, after all.” That dreaded nickname, but required to keep up the facade. 

No one laughed, but they relaxed slightly as Dean spoke, seeming to believe that he was himself. 

“Quite right.” Rowena smirked, her eyes flicking over to the moose himself. 

“Well if none of you mind, I need a beer. And pie.” Dean said, clapping his hands to end the increasingly awkward silence. 

“Of course,” Sam said, coming forward from behind Dean and clapping him on the back, Dean trying not to flinch at the touch. He pulled a beer from a box on the table, taking off the lid before handing it to his brother, brown eyes meeting green, Sam giving him an overjoyed smile as he released the bottle. 

“I don’t understand.” Jack said, looking round the group. “Why would Michael just leave you?” 

Dean was more than glad to see that Jack was healed. He may not have completely seen eye to eye with the nephilim, but he couldn’t deny that the boy wasn’t a part of his family, and he would be damned if he let him get hurt. 

“I don’t know either, and I don’t care.” Dean said, letting out a huff of air. 

“But we can deal with that later.” Sam said, his eyes misting up - he’d spent so much time searching for Michael, tracking the angel as best he could, that he had barely slept, only giving in when he’d fallen unconscious. He’d neglected everything else to the task of finding his brother, and now that he was before him, there was nothing but pure relief coursing through him. 

And a little suspicion as to why Dean was free. 

“Come on Cas,” Dean said, playing the part as best he could, readying himself to carry out Michael’s command. “Crack a smile, celebrate a little. I’m back, not dead, so stop acting like you’re at a funeral.”

“I am more than pleased that you are back, Dean, but I still don’t understand why Michael would leave you. I think that that is more important right now than a celebration.” The angel said, and Dean knew that he’d have to work at it to get close enough to Castiel to kill him; he would never beat him in hand to hand combat, not if he was on high alert for Dean to turn to Michael, and he certainly would stop him if he killed Sam first. 

So Cas would have to be the first to go, and that meant that Dean would have to play the game. 

“Maybe, but I haven’t eaten anything in god knows how long, and I doubt that Michael has been taking proper care of this body, so what I want right now is nothing more than a good piece of pie, and an easy hunt.” Dean said, taking a swig of his beer. 

“Of course.” Cas replied, and Sam threw his arm around Dean’s shoulders as they made their way towards the kitchen, excluding Rowena, who wanted to clear up her useless spells and equipment. 

“Dude, no chick flick moments.” Dean whined, earning a muffled laugh from Mary, and a smile from Jack. 

“You said ‘yes’ to Michael. I think I’m allowed to have this one, Dean.” Sam said, but he withdrew his arm anyway, though staying close all the same. 

“Yeah, about that.” Dean said, looking up at his gigantuar of a demon brother. “What did I miss?” 

Sam looked down at his feet as his smile dropped, but he pulled it back up quickly. “Where shall I start?”


	4. 129508

“So…” Sam began, looking around the room, and with a subtle raise of his head, Cas ushered Jack and Mary out, all of them knowing that Sam would want Dean to hear only one side of the story.

“First we had to get back from the church, and it took about a week for Jack to be steady on his feet again, and then another before he had even a tiny portion of grace to work with. He’s not very strong right now, so take it easy on him.” Sam added the last bit looking directly at Dean, knowing the man’s shaky relationship with the boy. 

It was clear that he was trying to suppress his emotions regarding the night in the church for his brother’s sake. 

_ Demons don’t feel emotion. He doesn’t really care about you. This isn’t the real Sam. Kill the monster.  _

_ Play the part and you can kill him.  _

It was his voice, his thoughts, not Michael’s.

“How long ago was that?” Dean asked, actually quite curious; he had no concept of time whilst his master had taken control, only a body count. 

129508 incarnations of Sam, Castiel, and his family. 

129508 dead because of him. 

_ I can save them. I can save my family. I can kill the monsters that threaten them.  _

“Three months, two weeks, and six days now.” Sam replied, looking down at his feet, the despair that had weighted down his shoulders for that time only just beginning to ebb away. 

“Three months?” Dean repeated, shocked too his core. 

It had felt like years to him. 

It had been an eternity. 

“Yeah.” Sam replied, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “We did everything we could to try and find you, but Michael was practically random in his targets, and we couldn’t summon him here, even with Rowena and the grimoire.”

“Everything?” Dean asked, trying to suppress a growl. “Even demons?” 

Sam lowered his head in shame, confirming Dean’s worst fear; it was bad enough that Sam was a monster, but to try and force everyone else along with him? That made him deserve his coming fate.

No. He deserved worse. 

He deserved to be locked up in Lucifer’s cage once again, and to rot in there for eternity. 

Now that would be a fitting punishment for him. 

“I guess that’s just your thing, then.” Dean couldn’t keep the growl away this time, and Sam visibly cringed at his words, knowing what was coming next. “Whenever big brother disappears you just run to whatever black eyed bitch comes your way to try and find an answer.”  _ Monster. Demon. Punish. Kill.  _ His rage filled his words, but fear too. Fear for what Sam would manipulate his family into doing. “Tell me, did you start drinking from them again, or sell your sell.” Dean stood over Sam, the taller man seeming so small under his brother’s gaze. “But I bet a monster like you doesn’t have a soul, do you, so who did you manipulate into coughing up?” 

Dean didn’t care about whatever he had planned, or about being careful. 

He wanted this monster dead. 

Sam raised his head, alarmed by his brother’s words. 

“Don’t say that to me. Don’t you dare.” Sam said, slowly rising so that he was looking down on his brother. “I did everything I could Dean, but I would never,  _ never,  _ make someone sell their soul. I would never force them to do anything, so don’t you  _ dare  _ accuse me of that.” 

Dean was shocked into silence, but not because of his brother’s words. 

Because of his tears. 

Demons don’t cry, he didn’t even think that the best demonic actor could force tears to spill, but here his brother was, tears lining his hazel eyes, preparing to spill down his cheeks. 

_ Monster. Demon. Punish. Kill.  _ The words got louder in his head, until he wanted to rip his ears off to try and stiffel it. 

_ ENOUGH!  _ He roared, silencing the chant, because there was a new one, a softer one, that he would never let go of again. 

_ Brother. Home. Safe. Protect. Love. Family. _

_ Brother. Home. Safe. Protect. Love. Family. _

_ Brother. Home. Safe. Protect. Love. Family. _

_ Sammy. My Sammy.  _

“Sam?” Dean asked, his voice cracking, as the words registered. 

“Yeah, Dean?” Sammy replied, noticing the change in his brother’s demeanour. 

“I’m sorry.” Was all Dean could say, having to grasp a countertop to steady himself as he remembered who was really before him. 

“I know,” Sam said, relaxing as his brother’s pain forced a tear to Dean’s eye. “I forgive you.” 

They were quiet for some time, and Sam was grateful that Cas was keeping their family at bay so that Dean could work through this - he’d known that Dean wouldn’t be himself, and that he wouldn’t react as he normally would to some things. Who knew what Michael had put him through? 

“Look, uh,” Dean began after some time, his brain running haywire as his emotions began to contradict his Master’s lessons. “I just… I just want to go to bed.” He let out a small chuckle, though one to hide his pain rather than display any amusement. 

“Yeah, sure Dean.” Sam said, clearing his throat, and they shared a weak smile before Dean walked out, though was stopped at the door by Sam calling out to him; “Welcome back, Dean.” 

He turned, smiling at his brother, but one more thought joined the chant in his head. 

_ Master won’t be happy with this.  _

And it was followed by a second one:  _ Kill him.  _

After all, Dean had surrendered his free will. 

 

xxx

“Hello Sword.” Michael calmly said, appearing before Dean in the white room once again. 

Or, more accurately, a dream of the white room. 

“You lied. You lied about my brother, and I’d bet everything that you lied about Cas too.” Dean growled, and Michael’s smug smile only confirmed it. 

Michael let Dean’s memories, true memories, of his angel and his brother flood through, letting him remember how much he cared for them, how much he loved them, and how much he hated Michael too. 

The hunter let out a small growl, but Michael raised his hand quickly to stop Dean from lunging forward to attack as he so wanted to, and he found he couldn’t resist. 

“Now now, Sword, none of that. You seem to have forgotten your place.” Dean didn’t move as Michael walked towards him, hands clasped behind his back, before he stopped only a metre in front of Dean. 

“I don’t care.” Dean said, trying to pull up the resistance he no longer had. 

“Be quiet, shut your mouth, don’t speak.” Michael quickly ordered, and Dean did so, however unwilling, though he let his eyes speak for him. “I want you to enjoy murdering your family, Sword, and not have to order you to do this, don’t you agree?” 

If it was possible for someone to better convey ‘fuck you’ in a glare, Dean would like to reward them. 

“Oh, Sword.” Michael tutted. “On your knees.”

Dean got to his knees. 

“I think that calling you ‘Sword’ makes you think you’re more important than you are,” Michael thought out loud. “Maybe ‘bitch’ is a much better term, isn’t it, Bitch?” Dean clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding together hard enough that he would normally have worried about breaking his teeth. 

He didn’t want to admit what fear he felt in that moment, knelt before an archangel who held complete control over him. 

Sammy had never gone into much detail about his time in the cage, but he knew that Lucifer was no saint, perfectly content to shove his dick down Sam’s throat to hurt him. 

“Oh, Bitch,” Michael began, preparing to monologue once more, “I would never stoop so low as to lie with  _ your kind. _ ” Relief poured through Dean. “Besides, I have better ways to hurt you.” 

Dean raised his head, looking directly into Michael’s eyes. 

“What was that idea you had? Throw your brother into the Cage again?” Michael’s face split open into an ominous grin, shudders running down Dean’s spine. “I must say that that sounds brilliant.”

After all, if Dean threw his brother into the Cage, that would be more than enough punishment for him; he would never question or attempt or even think to disobey Michael again. 

 

Xxx

 

Dean’s eyes snapped open, but it was Michael in control once again, and Dean couldn’t fight the angel one bit. 

_ Come on bitch, we have an angel to kill first.  _

Dressing with a snap of his fingers, Michael began to walk the halls of the bunker, copying Dean’s style of walking so not to alarm Castiel immediately, whilst also attempting to muffle his grace enough that the other angel would only sense what he hoped would be residual grace from Dean’s time as a vessel. 

The angel was in the kitchen, slumped down in his chair, a dozen empty beer bottles in front of him. 

“Hello, Dean.” The angel drawled, barely glancing the man’s way. 

“Cas.” ‘Dean’ replied, pulling a chair out, also slumping down into it. 

Castiel didn’t move to say anything, waiting to see how much of Dean was truly in there, how much he could handle, before he said anything that could hurt the man - he’d heard what he’d said to Sam, and he had no doubt that Michael had been mentally torturing him for compliance. 

“Look, Cas… I’m sorry.” Michael began, reveling in the way Dean screamed inside. 

_ Cas! CAS! CAS!  _

_ Oh, Bitch, you really love him, don’t you? You shouldn’t disobey me if you want nice things.  _

_ CAS!  _

“What for, Dean?” Castiel asked, and Michael was prepared to smite the angel right there, but he wanted to draw it out, to really hurt his sword, so he reigned himself in. 

“I shouldn’t have said ‘yes’, and I should have stayed with you.” Michael said, simply saying all of Dean’s old thoughts out loud. After all, he had enough material to work with to destroy both man and angel using only words. 

“You wanted to save your brother.” Cas said, looking at Dean, and Michael practically held his breath as the angel’s eyes fell on him, though he was either too intoxicated to see Michael, or Michael had done well in hiding his grace. 

“Yes, but I wanted to save you too.” Michael said, lowering his eyes to the ugly suit that the man wore. “I had to get Michael away, because I thought that he was going to kill you.” 

_ Stop this,  _ Dean begged. 

_ But why? You tried to disobey. You deserve this.  _

_ Please.  _

_ No. _

“Thank you Dean.” Cas replied, shrugging off the comment, and Michael let out a huff of annoyance. 

They both loved each other, and yet they were both too thick to realise that the other cared too, or that they should actually act on their feelings. 

“No, Cas, I mean that I really care for you.” Michael tried again, moving his hand so that Castiel could take it if he wanted to. 

_ Please. Please stop.  _

“Dean… I -” 

“No, Cas, just listen.” Michael interrupted, before taking a quick dive to pull out all of the things that Dean had wished he could say but never had. “I know that, at times, I have made it seem like I don’t care about you… actually, I’ve don’t that too much, and I’ve ignored a lot of things because I don’t do long term things…”

Hope. There was hope in Castiel’s eyes. 

And it crushed Dean. 

_ He  _ should be the one to say this. 

_ He  _ should be in control. 

_ He  _ should be the one to receive that piercing blue gaze. 

_ Not  _ Michael. 

“I… I just wanted to say that… I need you, more than you know, and I realised that I’d never said so when I was with Michael.” 

_ Please. Just… I’ll do anything. Just stop.  _

_ Anything? _

_ Anything.  _

_ Take control, but only say and do what I command.  _

No. That was not what he wanted. That was the opposite of what he wanted. 

“I care about you, Cas,” Dean said, unable to warn the angel as Michael’s words flowed through his mouth, or as he leant forward on the archangel’s orders. “I care more than you know.” 

“Dean, I -” Cas tried to say, but he interrupted once again. 

“No. Just - just let me finish, please.” Dean said, closing his eyes, praying that Cas could read his mind, his eyes,  _ anything,  _ so that he could stop Michael. 

_ Stop. Please, stop. Please.  _

Dean couldn’t take control enough to reveal anything. 

“I… I love you, Cas, and I need you.” Dean admitted, and they were his words, not Michael’s, though he would have rathered say them on his own terms, and not his possessor’s.

"I love you too, Dean." Cas admitted, breaking and fixing Dean's heart all at once. He'd said it. He'd said the words he'd feared he'd never hear. 

He'd probably just said his last words too, and that broke Dean more than any number of kills had in the white room.

Tears spilled down Cas’ cheeks, Dean’s too, before one more order came through. 

_ Kiss him.  _

And Dean did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... who can guess what's coming?  
> And don't worry, Michael is coming back :)  
> PS: Sorry about the late update, but I promise to have another Friday update this week.


	5. I love you, Dean Wichester

It wasn’t just a kiss. 

It was a kiss that had screamed to be released for nearly ten years. It was a kiss that wanted for so much more, and to be held forever. It was the one kiss that Dean had wanted since he’d begun to know Castiel, all those years ago. 

Michael may have sent the order down to act, but it was all Dean who leant over Cas, still sat in his chair, pressed into it by the broken man over him. 

It may have been Michael who ordered the kiss, but it was Dean who held it until he needed to breathe, and then demanded more.

Because as long as he had Cas with him, the two of them, together like that, Michael was forgotten and unimportant. 

They had been through the apocalypse and a heavenly civil war, leviathans and Purgatory. The two of them had fought to be with each other in a place for monsters, and they had faced knights of hell and douchebag angels together. They had fought the mark of Cain and the Darkness, the British men of letters and chased after archangels in both their world and the other one. 

And they had fought for each other every time. 

They had always found each other. 

Despite every betrayal and wrong move, the other had stayed. 

Cas let Dean take control, until he didn’t. 

Cas had Dean slammed up against the wall in one move, the chair toppling over and lying on its side. 

His hand came up to cradle the back of Dean’s head, fingers tangling through his hair, and Dean pulled against Cas’ waist, demanding that he lengthen the kiss. 

Demanding that he kept Michael at bay. 

“Dean.” Cas said, and Dean pushed so that they were no longer against the wall, and he trailed kisses along the angel’s jaw and down his neck, until he was undoing his tie and shirt to expose the top of his chest. 

“Dean…” Cas breathed, desperate for more. “I love you, Dean Winchester.” 

Dean went to reply, wanted to reply, but his words were stuck in his throat. 

_ How sweet,  _ Michael mused, his voice sending chills through Dean. 

_ No.  _ Dean thought, terrified, trying everything to pull back, to take back his free will, to take control.  _ Please. No.  _ He was begging, begging for Cas’ life. 

He tried to stop himself, to pull back from Cas so that the angel would know something was wrong, but Michael wasn’t giving him any give, using his body to keep Cas unaware and happy, blissfully unaware of the turmoil in Dean’s head, because Michael was back in control once again. 

_ Please,  _ Dean whispered, his soul screaming, crying, as he felt a cold weight settle into his hand. 

_ Anything. I’ll do anything.  _

Cas felt it as Dean pulled back, the question on the tip of his tongue, until he looked down to find an archangel blade in Dean’s hand. 

An archangel blade, plunged through his chest. 

“ _ NO! _ ” Dean roared as he was finally granted control, pulling the blade out to try and stop its effects. 

But Michael had struck hard and true, the blade piercing right through the angel’s heart, and Dean pulled the angel close as he died, collapsed on the floor, the hunter’s tears dripping onto his body. 

“Please, please reset it. I consent. I’ll be your bitch. Just take him away and give me anyone else to kill,” Dean begged, praying that this was all just some elaborate torture in the white room, and that Michael would send another form of Cas his way.

Yet Cas’ grace burned out of his body, wings being scorched into the floor at the same time. 

Being scorched across Dean’s body, burnt into his flesh forevermore. 

“I love you too, Cas,” Dean whispered, closing his eyes as his world fell apart. 

xxx

Sam was in bed, but in no way asleep. 

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t trust that his brother really was his brother. He just couldn’t; Michael wouldn’t just leave Dean, his true vessel, and abandon his plans for their world. 

He just wouldn’t. 

Which meant that there was some other plan going on. 

And Dean’s outburst earlier proved that Dean had been through a lot, likely torture, from that bastard. There was something wrong, but he knew that he’d have to face it on full, or as close to, full strength.

He’d listened as movement could be heard through the bunker, the sound one that he’d always associated with his brother. 

Cas was up, too, ensuring that Dean didn’t do anything too drastic, with his now usual addition of a drink of some sorts - a habit he’d developed since Dean had disappeared, and seemed to show no sign of giving up. Mary was likely asleep, or, at least, in her room, Rowena left to stay in somewhere way more luxurious, and Jack likely sleeping, still not quite up to full strength, his human side seeming to be pushing for more attention and forcing him to sleep for an hour or two each night. 

The sound of a conversation, muffled through the corridors, but a conversation all the same, eventually drifted to his ears, but Sam made no move to go and speak with his brother and the angel. 

They needed to talk, and hopefully help each other heal. 

He didn’t know what Dean had been through, but he knew exactly what had happened to Cas. 

_ “Where is he?” Cas had asked, zapping into the church after Sam sent up a prayer, going straight to Jack’s side to help support him. “Where’s Dean? Where’s Michael?”  _

_ Sam didn’t know how to begin, how to break the news to the angel, but Cas figured it out on his own, and something in him visibly broke.  _

_ “No,” he’d whispered, seeing Sam’s face, seeing the despair written all over it. “No… he… he has…”  _

_ “He’s gone.” Sam said, saying the words out loud for the first time, etching them in stone.  _

_ Dean was gone, really gone, and Michael was lose on their world.  _

_ Yes, they’d finally iced the devil, but Sam would spend a hundred, a thousand, more years in Lucifer’s Cage than to have his brother an archangel’s meatsuit.  _

_ “Michael’s free.” Jack said, groaning as he tried to stand straight, his body not healing.  _

_ “Jack,” Sam said, coming around in front of the boy to hold him up as the nephilim’s eyes began to flutter shut, and eventually close. “Cas.” Sam said, looking over to the angel, whose face was completely devoid of emotion, staring up at the stained glass window of the church. “Cas he needs you.”  _

_ But Cas didn’t move.  _

_ Instead, he walked over to pick up the discarded archangel blade - Lucifer’s - and threw it as hard as he could towards the wall, wedging it in there as cracks splintered through the stone, a roar escaping his lips.  _

_ A roar of fury and defeat, of pain and loss, of a man who’d known what would come, and been helpless to stop it.  _

_ “Cas!” Sam said, slightly louder, shifting some of Jack’s weight, focusing on the nephilim so that he wouldn’t have to think about his brother - he would be useless to Jack if he let his thoughts go to Dean.  _

_ The angel had no kindness in his face as he marched back up to the pair and placed his hands on their shoulders, immediately transporting them to the bunker, where Bobby and Mary awaited them.  _

_ They’d patched Jack up as best they could, Cas doing most the work, before putting him into his bed and assembling in the library, a bottle of whiskey on the table between the four of them.  _

_ One became two, then four, until they were unconscious in their chairs, all stinking of liquor.  _

_ All except Cas, who simply couldn’t drink enough to forget how much he’d lost.  _

_ To forget Dean.  _

_ Dean was gone, lost to a parody of his brother.  _

_ He might as well have been dead.  _

He’s not dead,  _ Cas reprimanded himself, knowing that Michael needed Dean to be alive for him to be at full power.  _ He’s not dead. 

_ That was all that kept him going, working at all hours to try and track Michael, to find the other angels and see if they’d help, tearing through every city in America and elsewhere that there’d even been a hint of Michael, Dean, or an angel.  _

_ He’d searched everywhere, but no matter where he’d gone, Michael was always one step ahead of him.  _

_ Sometimes he’d find cities in ruin.  _

_ Sometimes he’d find scorched land.  _

_ Sometimes he’d find nothing.  _

_ He’d chased lead after lead all over the globe, but no Dean.  _

_ He still looked though, never giving up, never faltering, one thought in his mind at all times;  _ Dean. Save Dean. 

_ He had to save the man he had silently loved, but there was nothing.  _

_ Nothing, until the first disasters struck.  _

_ First, it was Japan, hit by huge tsunamis, wiping out all coastal towns and cities, killing thousands. People had called it global warming. Hunters knew better.  _

_ Freak storms lit Europe up like a bonfire, major cities burning down, or being blown up in the freak levels of power. Humans called it a disaster. Hunters called it the apocalypse.  _

_ But nothing hit America for a month, until the day that Cas finally listened to Sam’s prayers, and returned to find that all monster activity, excluding demonic, had been eradicated almost all at once.  _

_ Humans didn’t care. _

_ Hunters called it Dean Winchester.  _

_ Bobby stopped tracking Dean after a month, instead going out into the world to join Charlie and Ketch in killing demons and seeing if anything could be heard on the ground, but besides the rumours going round, they barely had anything.  _

_ Rumours that Dean Winchester was in New York. In Chicago. In Wisconsin.  _

_ Cas chased every single one.  _

_ Sam chased tracking spells and demon, trying to sell his soul for Dean’s location, trying to find out what the demons knew about hunting archangels, even to see if the demons would be fooled into going on a suicide mission to catch Michael themselves.  _

_ None of them took anything.  _

_ Rowena helped, the pair doing every spell they could.  _

_ Sometimes tracking Dean, sometimes trying to stop the effects of Michael’s power - plagues killing crops and people in Asia, spreading towards Europe.  _

_ But America remained relatively untouched.  _

_ Relatively.  _

_ Michael didn’t want them, because he wanted Dean to be the one to take on his own country.  _

_ He wanted to break Dean.  _

_ They needed to find him before then.  _

_ Sam began hunting the demons, throwing himself into everything and anything, trying to drown out the pain of knowing that they’d lost.  _

_ Jack joined him when he was on his feet again, killing with a gun instead of his grace, but killing all the same.  _

_ Rowena worked on spell after spell, none of them caring anymore if it was dark magic or not.  _

_ Cas kept looking, kept searching, for the man he loved.  _

_ For the man who’d left him.  _

_ For the man who’d stolen his hope.  _

_ He’d returned to Sam, helping the man try to find Michael with spells and demons and logic, his hope dwindling more and more each day, until he was ready to just give up. _

_ Until all hope returned when Dean walked through the bunker doors, a month after all of Michael’s activity had ceased. _

_ Cas had been so glad, so overjoyed, so hopeful, when Dean returned that he didn’t care if it was Dean or Michael.  _

_ He didn’t care what happened, because there was Dean, walking down the stairs, Michael’s grace but a slither inside him, which he’d thought was just residue of his time as a vessel.  _

_ He only cared about Dean, when the man had kissed him at long last, giving him everything he’d ever wanted in that kitchen.  _

_ He hadn’t known complete betrayal until he had looked down to find a blade in his chest, perfect green eyes looking down at him.  _

_ And, his last thought?  _

He never said he loved me. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam sprinted through the corridors as an all too familiar sound flooded his ears; a dying angel. 

He crashed into the kitchen with his gun out, pointing it at his brother, knelt over Cas’ body. 

Cas’ body. 

Cas. Dead. 

“Dean?” Sam whispered, praying that this was some nightmare. 

“Hello, Sam.” ‘Dean’ said, getting to his feet, part of Cas’ wings burned into his chest. 

“Michael.” Sam growled, seeing red, and he pulled the trigger. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am sorry.  
> Yes, the above line really was a lie.


	6. RUN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, ok, I'm sorry that I'm late, but in my defence I gave you three chapters two weeks ago to make up for missing this week... (and I am going to be late this week too sorry please don't hate me any more than you already do!)

The bullets did nothing but anger the archangel possessing Dean. 

“Oh dear Sammy,” Michael crooned, “would you really hurt me, hurt  _ Dean,  _ like that?” 

“You are not my brother.” Sam growled, taking a careful step back towards the door. 

_ Jack,  _ he thought,  _ if you can hear me, run. _

He couldn’t let Jack get hurt again. Not if Cas was… was… he refused to admit what had happened. He couldn’t.

Because Cas was not gone. 

He couldn’t be. 

He wasn’t allowed to be gone forever. 

“No.” Michael said, standing up, putting a smirk on to Dean’s face, one that was too menacing and evil to be normal. “But then, he was too out of control to come and play.” 

Sam kept moving back, slowly, trying not to focus on the archangel’s words too closely. 

_ SHUT UP!  _ Dean thought, pounding against the walls of his mind, but his heart wasn’t in it; his heart was lying on the floor, torn apart and burned in Cas’ destroyed grace. 

“I gave precious Dean a chance to take control, and the first thing he does is go and yell at you, and accuse you of being a demon,” Michael sneered, Sam moving to block the door, trying not to focus on Michael’s words and only on getting his family out, but he couldn’t deny that they were hurting him. “He was going to blow everything in his rage, because he only thinks that you’re a monster, and you are nothing more than the boy with the demon blood.” 

Old words spoken by his dead friend, piercing Sam’s heart in a thousand places. 

“In his eyes, you’re just a monster, an abomination, and he won’t ever change his mind.” Michael finished monologuing, Sam repeating his prayer over and over again, trying and trying to get Jack up and moving, hoping that he was juiced up enough that he could hear him. 

“Your brother despises you, Samuel,” Michael continued, taking a step forward, his smirk so out of place on Dean’s body. 

“Then it’s a good job he’s not the only one I have to fight for,” Sam replied, hearing the sound of the bunker door slamming shut, Jack having heard his prayer and gotten everyone out. 

Hopefully. 

“Oh, how sweet,” Michael crooned, a mock pout replacing the smirk. “You think that your family is safe.” A humourless chuckle escaped Michael, and the archangel closed his eyes for a split second, giving Sam a single chance to turn tail and sprint out of the kitchen, sprinting through the halls to escape the monster wearing his brother’s face.  

Memories attempted to flood through his mind, and Sam tried to build yet another wall, wanting to focus on simply getting out. 

But he knew from experience that all walls broke in the end. 

Dean had once chased him through the halls of the bunker, the Mark of Cain having corrupted his soul until it was a blackened, twisted copy of what it had been. 

And now his ‘brother’ chased him again, only it didn’t seem to be a twisted copy of Dean anymore; his brother truly thought he was a monster. 

_ No he doesn't. That’s not Dean. Run.  _ Sam kept moving, hearing Michael saunter through the halls behind him, cackling as Sam reached the library and flew through the room, Michael far enough back that he hoped he would be able to get out. 

“Dean hates you, you know,” Michael called through the halls, too close for Sam’s liking, despite not running after him. “It didn’t take much to help him see - only a small trip down memory lane.” 

Sam risked a quick glance back as he reached the base of the stairs, clambering up them three at a time. 

“I just had to show him how many times you’d let him down, and what your daddy warned you about. He saw the truth soon enough.” 

Sam’s hand was on the door, pulling it open with all his strength, throwing himself through the door, savouring the fresh air, moving ever faster. 

And then he was flung back inside, his back hitting the stair rail and falling over the edge, hitting the stone floor as his bones broke and blood spluttered out of his mouth.

“Oh look at that. You really thought you’d escaped me,” Michael smiled, pushing his fingers to Sam’s forehead, healing him as slowly as he could to draw the pain out for as long as possible. 

“Screw you,” Sam gasped, shard of bone being pulled from his torn lungs, his ribs healing, but not healed. 

“Oh Sammy,” Michael said, smiling down at the pained hunter, powerless at his feet. “We’re going to have so much fun.” 

xxx

Jack was struggling without his grace. 

It was… the whole world was new to him already, but he had been learning, coping, with the messed up place. And now it was all changed again. 

If his grandfather knew what was going on, Jack had to admit that he had lost any positive feelings he’d ever had for the man. 

But complaining wasn’t going to do anything. He knew that well, so he had put everything he had into being strong enough without any grace to help. 

Bobby had taught him to fight. 

Mary had taught him to shoot. 

Sam had taken him out in the field. 

They had all been researching constantly to try and find Michael. They had to find Michael, and he had to be ready to take on the archangel. 

He refused to be useless again. 

Three months had given him an inkling of power - enough to heal some minor injuries, but nothing compared to his old power.

He couldn’t sense anything wrong with Dean, though, and neither had Cas, so he didn’t say anything when the man showed up, going about his business as usual, knowing that when morning came they would do anything to find where Michael went. 

Morning didn’t come fast enough.

Jack wasn’t used to sleep, so he tended to just drop when exhausted and sleep through everything around him for a few hours. Everything except prayers, it seemed. 

_ Run.  _

Run. The prayer came through loud and clear, Sam doing his best to hide his fear, but it was evident all the same.

Run, because Dean wasn’t who he said he was. 

Run, because Michael was in the bunker, and Sam was going to buy him time. 

Jack wanted to fight. He wanted to, so badly, but if there was one thing he had learnt in his months as a human, it was that he had to have patience. They couldn’t take on Michael right then; they needed more fire power, more back up. 

Leaving his room in a rush, still in his pyjamas, he crashed into Mary running down the hall, already dressed in jeans, a white shirt, and her brown jacket, her gun out as he came through the halls. 

Jack went to ask what was going on, but a finger to the hunter’s lips silenced him quickly, though they both had the same idea. 

Run. Run away. 

And so they ran, pulling Rowena from her room too. But not Cas or Sam. 

It wasn’t until they all left the bunker that anyone spoke. 

“Where’s Cas?” Jack asked, the trio running over to a car nearby and hot wiring it, not wanting to risk going to the garage, just in case Michael apprehended them. 

“Grace explosion indicates somewhere in the empty,” Rowena supplied, settling into the car, her grimoire clutched firmly in her hands. 

Mary, solemnly, nodded, having heard Cas scream, and putting two and two together. Grief ripped at her insides, but her hunter’s instincts took over, keeping her calm and in control, focusing only on the hunt and keeping everything that could cause her harm at bay. 

She wanted to go back so much. She wanted to get Sam out, to save Dean, but she knew that if she did she would die, and that would be of no use to anyone then. 

Pulling out her phone, Mary called Bobby, relaying what she knew of what had happened - Cas was dead, Michael was in the bunker, Sam was with him. 

She called Ketch next, then Charlie, until, twelve calls later, their whole network spreading the news that Michael was still in Dean Winchester, holding Sam Winchester hostage, and ready to terrorise the US. 

They were all silent, reeling from what had just happened, trying to come up with some way to recover from their loss. 

Silent, until Mary’s phone chimed, alerting her to a text. 

A text from Sam.

_ ‘Look who’s having the time of his life!’  _ It read, with an attached photo of Dean - Michael - with a bloodied Sam chained up in the dungeon. 

He had been flayed, beaten until his skin was no longer on his body, only hanging in ribbons and trailing to the floor. 

But he was alive, his eyes open, defiantly staring at the camera.

Mary gagged as she took in the photo, her youngest son helpless against the eldest. 

Dropping the phone, Jack picked it up to see the destruction that Michael had caused in the hour since their departure. 

Rowena winced when she took sight of the image, before another chime alerted them to one more message. One more photo. 

_ ‘Time for his medicine…’  _ A glass, full to the brim with crimson.

Blood. 

The shiver that ran down Mary’s spine almost had her turn back. If Michael wanted to break Sam, to destroy him wholeheartedly… strip him of his humanity. 

The only thing that kept her away was Jack, a pained expression on his face as he looked out the window. She had to get him out, keep him safe. He was her family too, and she had a chance to save him. 

She had to save him. She had to save  _ one _ of her sons. 


	7. Are we having fun yet, Dean?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: contains torture, more psychological than anything but still bloody.  
> You have been warned...

“Well well Sammy,” Michael said, circling Sam’s chained up body. His wrists were bound in chains, suspended above his head. The strain on his arms was massive considering his toes only just brushed the floor, keeping him on his tiptoes or else he’d suffocate. “Wherever shall we start?”

Sam’s eyes struggled to follow Michael’s movements, his brain slightly muddled still. 

_ Great, a concussion,  _ Sam thought, forcing his eyes open despite the bright lights causing him pain. 

Eventually he managed to push past his disorientation to find Dean…  _ Michael,  _ in front of him, wearing a black suit and red tie, with a brown apron covering it. 

“I’m waiting, Sammy,” Michael said, his hands behind his back, and a smirk plastered on his face. 

“Go.. to hell,” Sam said, his tongue seemingly made of lead.

“Hmmm…” Michael mused, stepping forward and placing his fingers to Sam’s forehead, despite the hunter’s attempts to jerk back. “That’s better, isn’t it,” he said, his icy grace burning its way through Sam’s brain, healing up the concussion. “I haven’t had to heal up a human in a while… I must be slightly rusty.” 

“Such a shame,” Sam sneered, shifting slightly in an attempt to remove some strain, and then failing miserably.

Michael, in turn, surged forward and gripped Sam’s jaw tightly, forcing it open and pushing pliers into it, gripping his tongue and tugging until it hurt. 

“Keep talking like that and I’ll tear it out,” Michael said, giving one final tug just to  emphasize his point. Sam glowered at him, but had enough sense to keep quiet. “Good boy Sammy,” Michael said. 

“Only Dean gets to call me that,” Sam replied.

“And I am Dean, or have you forgotten?” Michael smiled, walking out of Sam’s sight. A rattling noise alerted him to a wheeled trolly being brought over.

He thumbed the instruments carefully, before selecting a scalpel, one that Sam recognised from the bunker’s medical supplies. 

“Pick a body part,” Michael said, trailing the small blade over the hunter’s lips, then along his jaw and down his neck, before cutting away his shirt and tossing it to the side. 

“I’ve been tortured by the devil himself,” Sam said, using the same words he’d said to that British bitch all those months ago. “You can’t hurt me.” 

“Yes, yes,” Michael mused, touching the blade to is lips, “but your Lucifer is dead by my hand, which makes me the biggest threat right now. I’m top of the food chain. Do you really think I didn’t hurt anyone to get here?” 

A mirthless laugh echoed through the dungeon, before pushing it into Sam’s collar bone, dragging the blade through the skin and drawing up a line of blood, fire rippling along it, but Sam’d had worse. He could take this. 

“What’s Dean got to say about all of this?” Sam asked, not showing any sign of pain. He wasn’t going to give Michael any satisfaction.

“Oh he loves it, more than anything. He’s finally able to give you what you deserve,” Michael turned his head to the side, putting on a show of listening to Dean. 

_ You bastard. I’m going to tear you apart,  _ Dean thought, his voice practically shaking with anger, but unable to take control. 

“He says that two centuries in the Cage weren’t enough. An abomination like yourself should never have escaped the pit.”

“Liar,” Sam spat, trying to shut out everything, to recede into himself just as he’d done with Lucifer. 

He’d lasted nearly two centuries in the Cage. He could survive Michael. 

“Ok fine, I lied,” Michael admitted, slowly dragging the blade from from the edge of his first incision to Sam’s nipple, blood running in rivulets down his chest. 

The hunter couldn’t help but clench his jaw, something which Michael caught. 

“Did you know that Dean is shouting away in here, about how much he wants to kill me? He really thinks he stands a chance to save you,” Using the tip of the scalpel, Michael began to peel the top layer of Sam’s skin away from his collar bone, smiling as he worked, all the while Sam letting out pained groans, unable to keep quiet. 

It was agony, fire burning across his skin, drawing up too many memories. 

“I’ve had worse,” Sam said, gasping for breath when MIchael paused, one strip of skin dangling from Sam’s chest.

“I’m sure you’re simply looking forward to what I have coming,” Michael said, as calmly as if he was discussing the weather. “But I think you’re too… distant with me…” He mused. 

_ Why don’t you take the lead, Sword?  _ Michael asked Dean, horror and repulsion and fear coming back at him. 

_ Stop this, please. I will do anything. Just leave my brother alone!  _

_ Fine. I will leave Sam alone... _

Sam’s blood ran cold as a vicious and cold smile took over Michael’s face. 

_ … If you torture him instead.  _

“NO!” Dean cried, stumbling forward as he suddenly regained control of his body, using the trolly of instruments to support himself as he took deep breaths. 

“Dean?” Sam asked carefully, wary of the man as he remained bent over the instruments. “Dean? Is that you?”

“I killed him,” Dean whispered, eyes wide, arms shaking. “I killed him.”

“It wasn’t you, Dean. It wasn’t you.” Sam insisted, certain that this was his brother and not Michael. “It wasn’t.”

“But it was!” Dean replied, finally facing Sam, tears streaming down his face. “I did it! I held the sword and I plunged it through his chest! It was me! It was my fault!” He clutched his head, practically pulling his hair out. 

“Dean-” 

“No, Sam! You don’t understand! I could have tried harder! I could have done more! And I didn’t, and now  _ Cas is dead!”  _ Agony. It was agony that lined every part of Dean.

Sam said nothing, knowing that, no matter what he said, the words wouldn’t register with his brother. 

_ Enough of this,  _ Michael said to Dean,  _ pick up the scalpel, and continue from where I left off.  _

_ NO!  _

Dean picked up the scalpel, still shaking, trying and failing to let go of the tiny blade as he brought it back up to Sam’s chest, teasing away another strip, and Sam couldn’t help but grimace, despite trying to hold it in, for Dean’s sake. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” Dean said, again and again, as his hands were painted red, and the smell of iron flooded both men’s noses. 

“It’s ok,” Sam whispered, struggling to form words as his chest was stripped of flesh. “It’s ok. It will all be ok.” He grimaced once again, a groan of pain escaping his clenched teeth. “I can take it. I can take it Dean. This isn’t your fault.” 

His brother would never do this. He didn’t know exactly how, but he knew that Michael was the one in the driving seat. 

_ This isn't Dean. This isn’t Dean.  _

He would never admit it, but Dean’s shaking hands cut deeper than Michael’s, carving out pieces of his muscle as well as just skin. 

Sam would never tell Dean, though. 

_ Not Dean not Dean not Dean…  _

“It’s ok… It’s ok…” Sam kept repeating as Dean kept going, kept carving and slicing off skin, until Sam’s chest became ribbons of bloody flesh and chunks of muscle. 

Blood loss was taking it’s toll, causing Sam’s vision to darken, a cruel laughter the last thing he heard before unconsciousness overtook him. 

Michael forced Dean back inside as Sam fell away, waving his hand to heal up some of the damage, before summoning the hunter’s phone with a wave of his hand and using Dean’s memories to work his way to the camera, snapping a photo and sending it to ‘Mom’, along with his own little message. 

Another wave of his hand and he was summoning a demon, slaughtering it with his blade across its throat, collecting up the blood and setting it aside. 

He knew exactly how to hurt, how to torture, and how to break people. 

Dean knew what could break Sam. 

All Michael needed to do was perform the right taks, and a broken Sammy would give him an utterly broken Dean, unable and unwilling to fight back. 

_ Are we having fun yet, Sword? _

For once, Dean didn’t have an answer. 

xxx

It was agony. 

It was pure unending agony. 

_ It isn’t unending,  _ Sam thought, reprimanding himself as he came back to consciousness, though his eyes remained glued shut and breathing as steady as possible; he didn’t want Michael to start his torture again. 

He didn’t want  _ Dean  _ to start his torture again. He didn’t want to hurt Dean anymore than he had already. 

_ It will end. It will end. It will end.  _

It wasn’t the Cage. He was on Earth, where time was a factor to consider. One way or another, if it was in an hour, day, year, or decade, Sam would escape his torture. It could be by his own means, or by death, but he would escape. 

_ It will end.  _

“Awake so soon, Sammy boy?” Michael asked, catching the hitch in Sam’s breathing as he woke. “Good, I was getting bored.” 

Sam opened his eyes, not wishing to lose them by avoiding meeting Michael’s.  

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” Sam drawled, once again trying to shift his weight, but sharp needles drove through his muscles. 

_ How long was I out?  _ He wondered, knowing that his muscles were beginning to freeze, and wouldn’t move without further pain. 

When he got lose, he’d be at a severe disadvantage without full use of his arms. 

_ Wonderful.  _

“No, we wouldn’t,” Michael replied, ignoring the sarcasm. 

The archangel moved out of Sam’s sight, and the hunter used that time to try and gauge his surroundings for any sign of what was coming, but everything had been moved behind him. 

Lucifer had taught him that the suspense, the fear, of what was coming was sometimes as torturous as the actual pain. 

Sam would not be afraid. 

Not for himself, at least. He knew that he could last. He  _ would  _ last, but Dean may not. 

“So, Sam,” Michael said, coming back into view, a tray covered with a cloth in his hands, which he set on the floor near Sam’s feet. “You must be feeling hungry by now.”

“Screw you,” was all Sam said in reply, unwilling to play Michael’s games. 

“Now now, none of that, or else Dean will pay the price,” Michael said, a cruel smile cutting across his face. 

Sam’s eyes widened, but he quickly regained his resolve, unwilling to give the archangel an inch. 

“You see Sam,” Michael began, clasping his hands in front of him, “I don’t want to waste my time on torture. It’s messy and  time consuming, and I could do a million things instead of wasting my time with an ape like yourself.” Sam let out a barked laugh at that, rolling his eyes in the process. “And yet, no matter what I do, Dean always pulls himself back and starts fighting away because of love. I can’t have that, can I?” 

Sam slid his customary bitch face into place, moving his hands in an attempt to stop himself losing feeling in his fingers.

“So, I’m taking away Dean’s reason to fight. First, that traitorous angel, and now his darling brother. That should be enough....” Sam let out a low growl at that, but wariness of the covered tray stopped him from speaking. “So how to destroy the famous Sam Winchester? With that angel it was  _ love.  _ With you? I have something else planned.”

Michael reached down and quickly swiped away the cloth on the tray. 

Sam forgot to care about his arms as he saw the blood filled glass. 

He didn’t have to be a genius to know what specific type of blood he was being faced with… Demon blood. 

It always came back to demon blood, to his mistake that brought them all here. 

“Get that away from me,” he spat, tugging at the chains, trying to get free in a panicked frenzy. 

“Why oh why would I do that, Sammy?” Michael asked, picking up the glass.

“Don’t!” Sam yelled as Michael grasped his jaw, forcing it open once again, despite Sam’s jerking movements. 

He tried, truly tried, to keep moving, to shut his mouth, to pull away. 

Michael simply help him still and brought the mouth to Sam’s lips, tipping half the contents in as he coughed and spluttered, trying to spit as much of it out. 

He couldn’t go back to that. 

He couldn’t be an addict again. 

“I wonder what will happen to Dean if Sam doesn’t take his medicine…” Michael said, bringing the glass bag up to Sam’s mouth. 

Sam, who couldn’t get rid of all the demon blood, and who had involuntarily swallowed a few drops. 

Sam, who could feel the taint already filling him. 

Sam, who couldn’t let Dean get anymore hurt. 

“Open wide, Sammy boy,” Michael said, tipping the glass once again, quickly pouring the rest into Sam’s mouth, and swiftly clamping his hand over it, sealing it shut. 

He couldn’t not swallow it, not when it was so close, the sulphuric substance tempting him with the power he’d once had. 

He couldn’t not swallow it. 

He hated himself as the blood flowed down his throat, as it pooled in his stomach, as if infected him with its taint. 

He loved it. 

He hated it. 

He craved it. 

Gasping, he slumped in the chains, his joints protesting, but nowhere near as much as before. All he could feel was the current under his skin, begging to be released. 

He barefly concentrated as Michael undid the chains, letting him drop to the floor, landing on his hands and knees. 

It hurt. He didn’t care. 

_ Blood. Blood. Blood.  _

It rushed through his ears, pounded in his brain, accelerating his heart rate. 

_ Blood.  _

The power was at his fingertips, ready for use, as if he’d never let it go. 

_ More.  _

He didn’t hear as Michael walked out of the dungeon, shutting him in there with minimal light. 

_ More.  _

He could smell it. He needed more. It was there. 

_ Blood.  _

Following his senses, Sam found the body of a demon, blood pooling around them. 

He drained them dry, and when that was done, he licked the pool around them. He loved it. He hated it. He craved it. He wanted to stop, he wanted to resist, but he couldn't. He just couldn’t. 

It wasn’t like the first time he drank, when he slowly fell into his addiction. It wasn’t like with Famine, when he had been able to resist it. 

It was more. It was as if he’d never sobered up, never been clean, simply itching for another fix. 

_ Blood.  _

He knew he’d never been truly clean. 

He knew he’d end up here. 

_ Once an addict, always an addict.  _

“Enjoy you knew room, Sam,” Michael called, banging against the door, the noise hammering away in his head thanks to his heightened senses. “You’re going to be spending a lot of time in there now.”   
A lot of time. 

_ A lot of time.  _

Detox. 

_ So how to destroy the famous Sam Winchester?  _ Michael had asked. 

The answer? You don’t have to, because he’s already broken. He just doesn’t show it, hides from it, keeps moving to keep hunting, to save people, whilst sacrificing himself. He built up walls and layers and shields and protection. He kept himself moving. He kept moving and kept fighting and kept hiding. 

He couldn’t hide anymore. 

He couldn’t run anymore. 

He couldn’t fight anymore. 

He had to turn and face his mistakes. His many, many,  _ many, _ mistakes. 

 

Xxx

 

_ Listen, Dean,  _ Michael commanded, forcing Dean to pay attention as he shut Sam in the room, as he heard him scuttle around, as he heard him drain a demon of blood. 

Again. 

After all that had happened, they were back here. Sam on one side of a locked door, Dean on the other, neither of them able to do anything. 

_ Please, help him, stop this, I’ll do anything,  _ Dean begged, knowing to that Michael had the power to help his brother. 

_ He  _ had the power to help his brother. Michael was in him. He could fight, he could help, he had the power to save his brother. 

He had to have it. He had to be able to do something. 

_ Such a nice thought, but you sold yourself to me, Sword,  _ Michael reminded him, pushing him down again to try and suppress the rebelliousness within Dean, forcing him back into the white room where he could hear everything Sam said, screamed, and did. 

He could hear it all, tearing his hair out as he waited for the fateful screaming. 

And eventually it started. 

Eventually, Sam began to claw at his skin, no restraints to keep him still. 

Eventually, Michael’s finger twitched, and it wasn’t him that moved it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There ya go! A nice long chapter for you.


	8. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So from here on out I'm going to be bringing in some darker themes... much darker... and I will put them up in the notes (but if you don't want spoilers just skip the notes bit).... IGNORE THIS NEXT WORD IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS SPOILERSPOILERSSPOILERS introduction TO cannibalism SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS

He couldn’t stop his knee from bouncing, then his hand from shaking. 

All he wanted was the blood. He just needed the blood. He needed it like he did with breathing. He had to have it. 

He despised it. He hated it. He never wanted another drop of blood to enter his body again.

It had been hours, maybe days, possibly a week. He didn’t know anymore, only that a glass of water appeared when the twitchiness had first set in, and once again when he began to crave the blood. And now the detox was truly starting. 

_ Oh God. Please. Please. Not again,  _ Sam thought his eyes twitching, a cold sweat upon his brow.  _ Not again. Not again.  _

“Why shouldn’t you go through this, Sam?” Lucifer asked him, walking into the room and sitting before Sam, who in turn was curled up in a ball, as far from the demon’s drained body as possible. “You deserve it. You know you do. You drank the blood again, and now you must pay the price. You deserve this.”

“No. No!” Sam said, shutting his eyes to try and drown out the voices, despite knowing it was pointless. The devil was in his head, a hallucination of the blood, and he couldn’t escape. 

“But it’s true. You know it’s true. You’re a monster Sam, an abomination.”   
“Shut up.”   
“You don’t belong. You are an outcast within your own family. You just keep making mistakes that lead to more and more problems.”

“Liar.”

The devil tucked Sam’s hair behind his ear, despite Sam jerking away. The hunter shut his eyes, begging that the detox would end, begging for more blood, begging to be clean. 

He didn’t know what he wanted. 

He needed the blood. 

He craved it. 

He despised it and wanted it as far gone as possible. 

He didn’t know anymore. All he knew was the rushing in his ears, and the need that made up every piece of him. And Lucifer, who wouldn’t go away no matter how much Sam told himself it wasn’t real. 

“Sammy, I would never lie to you,” the devil said, cupping Sam’s chin in a twisted perversion of what one would do for a lover. 

Sam refused to acknowledge that the hallucination had spoken.

“You should never had escaped my cage, Sammy,” Lucifer continued. “You deserve to rot down there forever, just like all other demons. You suck them dry and pretend you’re better than them, but I know the truth. You’re just. Like. Them,” Sam snapped his eyes open, preparing to tell Lucifer to fuck off, but instead found a mirror showing him his own reflection. 

He had pitch black eyes. 

Surging forward, Sam knocked the mirror from the devil’s hands, preparing to fight him hand to hand, only to fall flat on his face as the hallucination disappeared.

He clawed at his face, trying to rip his eyes out, needing the demonic taint removed, purged from his body, but a force threw him across the room as his fingernails broke the skin around his eyes, and Sam crashed into the wall across the room, blood leaking into his eyes, which he wiped away. 

The pain was nothing compared to everything else.  

“Why don’t you just do us all a favour and kill yourself, Sam?” His mother asked, coming towards him and holding Sam almost tenderly, despite her words. 

Sam couldn’t see her face, but her arms were wrapped around his huddled form. 

“You aren’t real,” Sam replied, a headache causing his head to explode in pain. 

“Of course I’m not,” Mary replied, coming around to face her son, “I’m dead. Michael saw to that whilst you were unconscious, or did you think that he let you go?” 

“Liar.” 

“How do you know?” She responded, walking away slightly, until Sam could see her completely. 

So he could see as her skin burned and bubbled, melting away until it was nothing more than human shaped charcoal. 

Sam wanted to throw up. 

“He burnt me Sam. He burned me away, again and again, healing me over and over until I couldn’t take it, and I begged for death.” Blood and puss dripped from where her eyes should have been. “You could have saved me. You should have realised that he wasn’t your brother. You are meant to be the one who saves us, and you failed. You always fail. You’re better off dead.” 

“Stop. Stop this. Please,” Sam begged, hoping, praying for a drop of blood. Hoping, praying, that he could be clean again. 

He would never be clean again. 

“Why should I? You deserve it. You killed me, and now I’ve come for you. You should have died years ago. You’re a walking abomination, screwing up everything you touch.”

Thrusting a hand out, Mary threw Sam back into the wall, holding him there with nothing more than her powers. 

Powers a human couldn’t possess. 

Her form flickered as she took a step forward, Sam unable to move against her. 

_ She’s dead. She’s really dead. I killed her. She’s dead because of me. They’re all dead because of me.  _

“I’m not vengeful, Sam. I’m just right, and I know that you deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done. You started the apocalypse once, and now thanks to you, you’ve started another. Dean only said ‘yes’ to save you. This is your fault.”

“Please, stop it. Please, go away,” Sam begged, banging his head against the wall, something warm and wet trickling down from his skull, and his vision darkening at the edges. 

_ Lies. Stop. Please. Blood. Need. Stop. Blood. Help. Lies. Stop. Blood. Blood.  _

“Why don’t you end it yourself? Put yourself back where you belong, amongst your own kind?”   
“NO!” Sam roared, lurching to his feet, but his mother was gone. 

He was alone. 

“Think again,” Dean said, standing before him. His head was throbbing, and left eye blinded by the blood dripping into it, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to care. 

This was Dean. He knew it. 

“Dean,” Sam breathed, unsure anymore if he was still hallucinating or not. 

Maybe his mother really was dead. Maybe this really was Dean. 

Maybe he was better off dead. 

“Hey Sammy,” his brother replied, giving him a hand up. “Why did you do it man? Why did you give in?” 

“For you,” Sam replied, but Dean dropped his hand, shaking his head. 

“No, you wanted this. You’re just a junkie, and looking for an excuse to get high.”   
“Dean-” 

“No, Sam. You did this for no one but yourself, and you know it. Once a junkie, always a junkie, right?” 

“No-” 

“You’re no better than a demon, and you deserve to die like one.”   
Dean’s eyes glowed blue, and Sam felt ever atom of his being tear apart, ripping to pieces as he screamed. It was fire and ice, both warring for power in his veins. He melted and froze, bubbled and boiled and burned. Torn apart, again and again, every fibre of his being in complete agony, and he was screaming. 

He was always screaming. 

He couldn’t stop screaming. 

At some point the pain stopped, Dean disappearing, but the screaming didn’t. Or maybe it did. Maybe it wasn’t a scream, but ringing in his ears. 

Ringing, and a rush, and pounding. 

His stomach clenched, twisted, writhed, and all too soon he was reminded of how much he needed the sulphuric blood of a demon. He needed it. He craved it. He had to have it. 

He couldn’t keep going. He couldn’t. 

He needed it. 

He couldn’t have it. 

He needed to  _ stay strong.  _ He needed to be clean, so that he could save Dean, save his mum, and save the world. 

It was all an illusion, just some elaborate hallucination he’d come up with to try and make himself drink the blood. 

It wasn’t real. 

But the light flooding into the room as the dungeon’s doors opened up was real. The man walking into the room was real. The demon dragged behind him was real. The blood pouring down the demon’s slashed throat was  _ definitely  _ real. 

“Dinner time!” Called out Michael, throwing the demon at Sam’s feet. 

_ Blood. Blood. Blood, blood, blood, blood blood blood.  _

“No,” Sam managed to wheeze out, his knees shaking, muscles twitching. He needed it. He wanted it. He craved it. 

He couldn’t…. 

He couldn’t have it. He needed to escape. 

But Michael was blocking the exit, and the demon was  _ right there.  _

“No,” Sam repeated, staring Michael right in the eye, refusing to cave in. 

“Really?” The archangel arched an eyebrow and clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, this is interesting. You’re willing to destroy your brother’s sanity, just so that you can try to stay clean. Stay  _ human. _ Well well well…”   
“What do you mean?” Sam forced out, trying to maintain eye contact to avoid looking at the monster at his feet. 

“I told you before Sam… or don’t you remember?” Sam thought back to his last demon-blood-free moments, but they were all a haze. “I said that if you didn’t take your medicine, your brother would take the punishment. There’s so little of his sanity left that I’m surprised he can string two words together. But, if you insist…”

Michael turned to leave, but Sam had his jaws clamped around the demon’s neck in a flash, gulping down mouthful after mouthful of that hot, delicious, powerful blood. 

_ Blood, blood, bloodbloodbloodblood.  _

“Good boy,” Michael said, walking out the room, and shutting the doors behind him. “See you in a week, Sammy!” He called, and Sam was once again left alone. 

He didn’t need to keep drinking, not now that Michael was gone, but he wanted it. He  _ so so wanted it.  _

SO he drank, and he kept drinking.

And when Michael didn’t give him food to sate his week and a half starvation, he gave in and took his first proper bite of demon flesh. 

Michael laughed. 

Dean screamed.

Sam kept going. 

Michael ordered Dean’s silence. 

Dean complied, silently and unnoticeably beginning to carve his own little personal space out, where Michael couldn’t get to him. 

And Sam just kept eating. 

xxx

“Thanks Bobby,” Mary said, hanging up on the old man. 

She’d been in contact with the hunter, trying to find a way to get a monster out of her son, whilst also attempting to organise the hunters from the other world, needing them to be ready to fight another apocalypse, to fight Michael. 

It didn’t surprise her that they weren’t too eager to get back on the case of the archangel, instead opting to hunt in smaller groups and try to regain some sense of life before immersing themselves back in the world of the apocalypse when Michael returned to the US in full force.

But he was back, and they needed to fight. 

“I still say that we make our way to Spain,” Rowena remarked for the fifth time, wanting to go somewhere with no archangels or Winchesters. 

“And I say we fight,” Mary replied, throwing her phone on her hotel bed and walking into Rowena’s room. 

Advantages of traveling with an all powerful witch? Much better accomodation. Rowena had had the trio staying in only the best hotels, currently the Ritz-Carlton in St Louis, Missouri. They had the best suite, with their own rooms, though you would only have guessed that two were occupied with the way the third resident was acting. 

Jack hadn’t left his room since they’d arrived.

Mary knocked on the door, opening it to find Jack in the corner, his eyes closed and legs crossed as he sat on the floor, doing the exercises Cas had taught him: breathing, closing himself off from the outside world, and trying to find his grace within himself. 

It was meant to bring him peace, and help him to heal a bit faster, but all it seemed to be doing was frustrating and upsetting the boy. 

“Jack?” Mary asked, and the boy opened his eyes. “Bobby called. The others are on their way here, and we will see them by the end of the week.” 

“That’s too long,” Jack replied, getting to his feet. “Sam is being tortured. Dean is gone, and Castiel is… he’s… not here right now. We have to move now!”

Not even a light flickered. 

It was driving Jack insane. 

“I know… I know,” Mary said quietly, knowing exactly how the nephilim felt. “But… we can’t take on Michael, and we are no use to Sam if we’re dead. We  _ need  _ the others. We have to wait.” 

“THEN WHY AREN’T THEY HERE?” Jack roared, stalking forward, and Mary took a step back to match his movement. 

It was in times like that that she was reminded of who his father was, as much as she hated it. 

“We needed to take on Michael, and the country needed hunters,” Mary said, demonic activity having spiked a month ago, massacres occuring every other day, people going missing at an alarming rate. 

If she hadn’t known any better, Mary would have said that the demons and Michael were working together to destroy the world, to kill the humans. 

All of them. 

“I don’t care about them,” Jack murmured, going over to the wall and punching it, again and again, adding to the already quite large pile of plaster on the floor, some glass mixed in from the smashed mirror, feathers floating around from the torn pillows. 

It was a good job Rowena knew how to soundproof a room. 

“I say we send him in,” Rowena remarked, looking in at the destruction around Jack, who stopped just long enough to look at the witch at his door. “With all this anger, he could take Michael out easily.” 

“I’m ready,” Jack immediately said, needing to kill Michael, to avenge Castiel and Sam, but also to get the man’s grace, to have the power to save Cas once more. 

He had to get Cas back. 

He had to save Sam. 

He didn’t care if Dean survived. 

“You aren’t, Jack,” Mary replied, trying to calm the boy. 

“I am.”   
“You’ll die.”   
“Who cares?”   
“I DO!” Mary finally roared, snapping after Jack’s weeks of moping and anger, constantly trying to throw himself into danger, not caring about what the consequences were. 

The boy almost seemed shocked by the hunter’s words, but she wasn’t done yet. 

“ _ I  _ care,” she said, “ _ I  _ care whether you die.  _ I  _ care if you don’t come back.  _ I  _ care, ok? I’ve lost two of my boys now, to a monster who will try to destroy everything that makes them who they are, but I can’t lose you too. I can’t.” 

The nephilim began to well up, almost spilling over, but not quite. 

“We will get them back,” Mary said, coming forward and pulling the boy into her arms. “But I won’t sacrifice you on a chance. When we go in, we all go in, and we take Michael out once and for all, and we  _ all  _ come back alive.”   
They were silent, simply holding each other, as a mother and son, simply existing and caring for each other, about each other. 

“Well this is swell and all, but we do have an archangel to kill, and if I’m going to be within a million miles of the man, I want to be protected, so chop chop, get to work, and find me my ingredients,” Rowena said, ruining the moment, but reminding the pair that they had a job to do, after all. 

When they came for Michael, he wasn’t getting away alive. 

 

Xxx

 

Michael had made a mistake. 

He’d assumed that, to destroy Dean, he had to remove all his happiness, his joy, his  _ Sammy.  _ But he was wrong. 

He’d left Dean only his misery, his suffering. He’d allowed the hunter to swim in it, happiness and peace simply a distant concept. 

And that had been his mistake. 

Because Dean’s memories, his worst memories, were his and his alone. They may have been awful, they may tear him apart to relive and exist in, to shroud himself in layer upon layer of them, but if it was the cost of being free from Michael, it was a cost he’d willingly pay. 

Memory upon memory, layer upon layer, Dean expanded his cocoon of misery, a place that Michael didn’t touch, because he thought it was Dean destroying himself. 

He was, but he was taking the archangel down with him. 

He just had to remember what was real. 

He just had to be able to bring himself back when he was done. 

_ “You can’t tell him. You take a shot at me, whatever you gotta do, but please don’t tell him.”  _

Over and over again, through his head, constantly on loop. 

“ _ Your problem is that nobody hates you more than you do.” _ _  
_ _ “What happens when you’ve decided I can’t be trusted again? I mean, who are you going to turn to next time instead of me? Another angel? Another vampire?”  _

“No Sammy, never again,” Dean whispered to his brother, watching every last event replay, watching as his brother turned away, as he turned away, as they failed and got people killed because of it. 

Again and again. 

Over and over. 

Until the memories was so clear, so indisputably his, so well ingrained in his mind, that Michael couldn’t ever change it. 

When that happened, Dean created another wall. And he became slightly more himself. 

_ “Whoah! Whoa, Sam. Sam! Hey! Come here. Let me look at you. Hey, look. Look at me. It’s not even that bad. It’s not even that bad, alright? SAMMY! Sam!” _ _  
_ Cold oak. 

_ “I think it should be you up there and not her.” _ _  
_ Charlie. 

_ “Yes.” _

Layer upon layer. Memory upon memory. Piece by piece. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam was so hungry. 

He was more than hungry. 

TIme held no meaning for him anymore, since there was no light to mark the days by, only the hum of electricity overhead and the light that never turned off. 

And the demon corpses. 

Corpses… food. 

He was so hungry. He didn’t know why. 

He’d tried not to eat, to starve and wait, but in the highs of the blood, when his base instincts took over, when hunger tried to rip him apart, then he finally caved. 

All he’d needed was the blood. Muscles held blood, or at least… something, and he’d gone and torn the flesh from the bones in a frenzie to get his next fix, to sate his gnawing stomach, to drown in the buzz, the power, coursing through his veins and begging for release. 

And oh, it was so good. 

It was just… magnificent. 

Bite after bite, and the demon lost an arm. Then the other. Then half a leg.

He tried, he truly tried to stop, but whenever the thought of remaining human, of saving his soul, of saving his brother, came to his mind… something just told him he  _ had  _ to keep eating. He just had to. 

Michael laughed every time he snapped his fingers and messed with Sam’s head, and he loved Dean’s silence. 

_ Finally,  _ the archangel thought when another strip of flesh was torn from the bones.  _ Finally.  _

Sam Winchester was nothing more than an animal, deranged and inhuman, prowling it’s cage day and night, barely sleeping, constantly eating. A true abomination. 

_ How much can he take…  _ Michael mused, watching the creature as it clawed at the body in front of it. His soul wasn’t the scared but pure thing it had been before. It wasn’t even white. 

It had started to grey when the blood began to taint his body. 

It had darkened as he drank more and more. 

It was now patched up with black, twisting and breaking as he consumed more and more of the two demons, as he picked their corpses clean, as the rotting flesh passed his bloody lips. 

_ How long before he’s one of them? A demon. A true monster, through and through. What would Dean say, when his precious Sammy was truly a monster, truly lost to him forever. Just another monster to hunt and kill.  _

Michael smiled as Sam sniffed the air, the demon in Michael’s hands - an early delivery considering it had only been two days - already dead and dripping crimson. Sam sniffed, smiled, and his eyes flashed pure black. 

_ Not long at all, it seems.  _

Piece by piece, Sam threw himself into the pit. 

Piece by piece, Dean tried to claw his way back to his brother. 


	9. A monster indeed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more cannibalism, a bit of angst, a bit of death... I should say sorry...

“There aren’t enough,” Mary murmured to Bobby, looking on at the assembled hunters. 

They had all answered the call. It still wasn’t enough. 

“It will have to be,” Ketch replied, listening in on the pair, Charlie by his side. The pair had spent their time hunting across the US, with a brief spree in Canada and another in Mexico. 

Silence fell across the room as the group walked into the centre, Jack coming forward from the crowd to join them. 

“We have Michael in the Men of Letters bunker, currently holding Sam Winchester, my son, in there with him,” Mary announced, waiting for people to say something, but none of them even attempted to oppose her words. “He is still within the body of Dean Winchester… and he has killed the angel Castiel.”   
_ That  _ brought some mutterings. 

“If we want to kill him, and save Sam, we have to go in now,” Mary finished, handing over to Bobby, who would be much better at coming up with a strategy for the people he knew all too well. 

“The plan is to place angel proofing on the outside of the bunker, which will keep Michael in there for a period of time. We will also have to get a hold of a weapon which can harm an archangel. Thankfully…” Bobby paused, looking to Jack, the nephilim turned human. “Thankfully we know where one is.”

_ “We know where Lucifer’s is,”  _ were the unspoken words. 

“We will go into the bunker with the archangel blade, and we will kill Michael once and for all,” Bobby continued, and Mary looked quizzically at him. 

“What about Sam and Dean?” She asked under her breath. 

“If they die, then they die. We are going up against Michael, and I won’t risk anyone to save two people, one of whom is as guilty as Michael in these crimes.”

Mary did well to conceal her horror at the finality and surity of the man’s words. He would kill her sons to save the world, but she was a WInchester and a Campbell. She was loyal to a fault to her family. 

She would save her sons if it was the last thing she did.

 

Xxx

 

Dean refused to fight Michael anymore, not for control; he didn’t want to risk the archangel realising how much he’d taken back.

Not much, but enough.

And yet he couldn’t not see Sam as he drained another demon, as Michael warped his mind until he saw their bodies as food. And he couldn’t not see his brother’s soul. 

His heart was black, brain crawling with maggots of darkness, soul growing more twisted and ugly with every passing moment. It broke his heart, but he didn’t need a heart to win. 

Dean would willingly destroy himself entirely if it would save Sam, but he was running out of time. 

One mouthful. 

Another maggot. 

One bite. 

Light lost. 

One bite. 

“I think it’s time we got you out of this place, Sammy,” Michael said, catching Sam’s attention from where he stood in the doorway. Where he stood with a pile of dead demons behind him. 

“Why let me out?” Sam asked, getting to his feet and taking a few steps forward. 

“Maybe I’m trying to be a good host,” the archangel replied, a smirk plastered across his face. Dean’s face. 

Sam hesitated in taking a step forward, the demons alluring, but not as much as before since he’d just fed.

Just fed, like a monster. 

But he needed to get out of that room, and if he died for it then at least he wouldn’t be suffering anymore. 

It was a win win situation really. 

Once step. Towards some freedom, towards pain, towards death. 

Then another, then another. 

Until he couldn’t take another step. Until he hit a wall, an invisible wall. 

“What…?” He began, looking to Michael, then around and down for something that the archangel had done. 

It wasn’t what he archangel had done. It was what he had done. 

He’d eaten demon after demon. He’d consumed their blood and bodies. He’d tainted himself again and again, until he had blackened his soul. 

And he was trapped in the dungeon by a devil’s trap. 

A monster indeed. 

“Oh this is too good, isn’t it,” Michael said, coming up to the edge of the trap as Sam beat at the wall, beat at his cage. “A monster now, inside and out. Tell me Sam, how does the world look through black eyes?” 

No. 

_ No.  _

“No.”   
But Michael wasn’t lying, Sam knew. He was, after all, a… a demon… by his own making. 

He was a demon. 

A monster.

The boy with the demon blood. Azazel’s child. Lucifer’s vessel. The boy who couldn’t close the doors to hell. The boy who’d let Michael into his home. 

He was a monster, and now the whole world knew.

It was almost fitting. At least now he had proof for how much of an abomination he was. 

“Monster,” Michael whispered. “Demonic scum.”   
He was. He truly was. 

He fell to his knees, his hands shaking as he brought his fingers to his face, brushing the skin around his eyes. 

Black eyes. He had black eyes. He was trapped in a devil’s trap. He was a demon. He’d done this to himself. 

Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood, now a demon himself. 

“Someone spread the news!” Michael proclaimed, his arms spread wide. “Sam Winchester, the first demon to cry!”

More truth. More truth to destroy the hope of a man hanging on by a thread. 

Not a man. Not anymore. 

He deserved to die. He would die. He would do it so that Dean wouldn’t have to kill him himself. He didn’t deserve the cure. He couldn’t make people waste that time on him when there was Michael to worry about. 

Tears dripped down his cheeks, soaking his cheeks. 

He wasn’t even worthy of the tears he was spilling. After all, monsters don’t cry. 

Monsters don’t act human. Monsters were hunted and put down like the animals they were.

 

Xxx

 

His brother had black eyes. 

His brother couldn’t have black eyes. 

His brother didn’t have black eyes. 

Michael’s hallucinations had black eyes... Michael’s torture had his brother with black eyes… Michael’s hallucinations all had Castiel die… 

_ “NO!”  _ Dean roared, leaving his place of safety and pain, going into Michael’s domain. “ _ Let me out! Let me out! End it!”  _ He bellowed, slamming his consciousness against the adamant  wall of Michael’s. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. 

Castiel was alive. Sam was human. This was all just some elaborate torture by Michael. This wasn’t real. 

_ This isn’t real.  _

“This isn’t real!” Dean screamed, ripping through Michael, who fell apart in his hands. 

“This isn’t real!” Dean roared, forcing the angel into the subconsciousness. 

“This isn’t real,” Dean said as he flexed his hands, as he controlled his body, as he drew Michael’s angel blade, walking towards his ‘brother’. 

The thing didn’t even put up a fight as Dean plunged the blade through its chest. 

xxx

He’d won. 

He’d killed the demonic hallucination of his brother. He’d done it. He’d seen through Michael’s game. 

He’d won. 

His Sammy was safe in the real world. His Cas was safe in the real world. Michael was ripped apart…

Michael was… right there. He was right there, looking through his protective memories, looking through his mind, looking through him. 

“Such a poor little Sword,” Michael crooned, stroking Dean’s consciousness in an almost loving manner. Dean shuddered as best he could. 

“I… but this isn’t real…”  Dean whispered, watching as Michael smashed through his safe place, waiting for the world to fade, for him to be left back in the white room. 

“It was perfect, wasn't it? You were so well conditioned to think that you had to kill your brother that it became your first instinct. You see a black eyed Samuel WInchester, and all you can think of is killing him. It’s perfect, isn’t it?” 

No. 

“No,” Dean breathed, and Michael responded by kneeling down next to Sam’s body, giving Dean all his senses, but no control over his body. 

“Look at him,” Michael crooned, brushing the corpse’s hair out of his face. He could have been asleep; he wasn’t even completely cold yet. He was pale, but no more than a sickness could cause. But his chest didn’t rise and fall, his heart didn’t beat, and a blade was sticking out of his chest. 

Samuel Winchester was dead. 

“It’s better than that,” Michael chuckled, pulling the blade out and whipping the blood onto his fingers, admiring the crimson sheen as Dean attempted to throw up. 

Sam wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. 

And if Sam was dead… Cas truly was dead too. He might as well add Mary and Jack to that list, because they were probably dead too. 

He was alone. 

He had no one. 

He’d killed them all. 

“Did you know,” Michael began, continuing his earlier words, rubbing his red fingers together, and then smearing it over his - Dean’s - face. The brother he’d killed, his blood on his face. He would have cried, screamed, vomited if he’d had the chance. “That Sam isn’t in the empty where he belongs?” Dean practically leapt with joy, before realising that, when it came to Michael, it would only be worse. “I took an idea from you, actually, and I sent him to the one place he despises above anywhere else. I sent him back to the Cage.”

“No,” Dean whispered, pain radiating from his core, and not from any physical injury.    
“No, you’re right.  _ You  _ sent him to the Cage. I may have pulled some strings to get him there, but you are the one who plunged the blade into his chest.  _ You  _ killed your brother, remember that.”   
He’d done it. 

He’d killed his brother and sent back to his personal hell, one worse than nay he’d ever experienced tenfold. 

It was his fault. 

“I’m sure Sammy will enjoy eternity with a vengeful archangel, don’t you?” Michael asked, cackling as he went. 

Dean simply sank into the dark recesses of his mind, unable to fight back, to move, to do anything. All he had was a broken mind and a few memories of a dead brother. 

A brother whose blood was covering him, inside and out. 

The dark became his haven, where Michael kept an eye on him as he relived every memory of Sam he had, from holding a baby to laughing in the Impala. 

He just stayed there. 

He didn’t care anymore. 

 

Xxx

 

Samuel Winchester welcomed the blade. He welcomed his brother’s merciless eyes, his cold sneer, his sharp blade, because he knew he deserved it. 

He had ruined himself, and he deserved to rot in the empty forever. He didn’t want to come back anymore. He didn’t want to see the world through black eyes. He didn’t want to prove to everyone that, after everything, he was just a monster. 

_ It was always going to end this way,  _ he thought as the darkness rushed in, as he looked upon his brother’s face for the last time.  _ Cain and Abel, Sam and Dean, two brothers destined to kill the other.  _

At least in the empty he could pretend he was human. After all, Billie always said she’d dump him in there when he died. Human or demon, he was going to be just Sam Winchester, inhabitant of the empty. 

But that wasn’t the empty. 

The empty wasn’t made of overlapping bars of jagged metal, twisting over each other and leaving only minuscule gaps. The empty wasn’t in hell. The empty wasn’t meant to rip through his soul as he passed through the bars, as he landed on the unforgiving ground, as his bones shattered and yet wasn’t able to die. 

The empty didn’t have the original, broken, vengeful Michael. 

Lucifer was terrible. Lucifer was a monster whom he feared beyond belief, whom he couldn’t compare to anyone else in terms of his pure evilness. 

But he’d take Lucifer over Michael any day. 

At least with Lucifer it was predictable to a point. It was always pain, always torture, always something to hurt him. 

With Michael… with Michael it was pain, comfort, comfort, pain. He’d helped him with Lucifer, only to turn on him when the fallen angel wasn’t any fun. Michael… Michael was worse. 

And he had an eternity with him. 

“Well, look who's come back, and with a new set of eyes too,” Michael said, emerging from the dark with a feral grin. “I’ve missed you, my Sammy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not saying sorry :)


	10. You're just like me, son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having fun. How about you guys?

The church was a tomb. 

Silent. Undisturbed. Empty. 

It was Lucifer’s tomb. No one had wanted to touch the archangel’s body. No one had wanted to have anything to do with the man who had ruined so much of their lives. The body was still in the centre of the floor, wings charred into the ground, preserved perfectly. 

Not even Death had touched the vessel’s corpse.

“Hey,” Mary asked, touching Jack’s arm as he walked forward, breath catching in his throat. “Are you sure you’re ok? You don’t have to be here.”   
He tried, truly tried, to pull himself together just as the Winchesters did all the time, and yet he couldn’t. 

This man had ruined his life, and yet he still cared about him. He still longed for his true father, for the man who had offered him the chance to travel the stars, to own a lightsaber and have fun. He was chasing after a dream though, not for the true man who had stolen his grace and destroyed his family. 

“Jack?” Mary inquired again, coming in front of him and blocking his father’s body from view. 

“I’m fine,” he whispered, and yet she knew he wasn’t. 

“If you say so,” was all she said, though. 

“Let’s just… let’s just get this over with,” Jack said, and Mary nodded as she fell into step besides him, the pair hunting through the room for the archangel’s blade. He never looked at Lucifer’s body.

It had rolled to the far wall, lying on the floor. Jack was almost numb as he reached down, as he closed his hand around the handle and picked up the cool metal. 

“Let’s get going then,” Mary said, her hand going to Jack’s shoulder, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. 

“I… Can I have a minute please?” He asked, facing the woman. 

“Sure,” Mary replied. “I’ll be right outside when you’re ready.”   
He footsteps echoed as she departed, the door closing with a loud slam. It was only then that Jack could turn to face the body, his father, still as peaceful as before. He didn’t deserve peace. 

“I…” Jack began, coming up to Lucifer, looking down at him. “I wanted to go to the stars,” he finally said, kneeling down by the body. “I really did. I wanted a father, and I wanted to think that you wouldn’t be as bad as the others all said…” He trailed off, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself, weighing the sword in his hands, perfectly balanced and finely molded. “But you were, and you’ve ruined so much. I… I found a new father, three really, in the WInchesters and Cas. They were the ones who taught me everything, not you, and I wish that I could have stopped you sooner, and seen that earlier…” 

He trailed off, trying to find the words, trying to channel Dean’s anger and Sam’s brain…

“I hope that wherever you are now you’re rotting for what you’ve done to these people here, and I hope that you never come back. I am not proud to call myself your son, and I am doing my best to be different in every way…”

His words ran out at that point, trailing into the darkness of the tomb where there was no one to listen to his pain. 

He wanted to say more. He needed to tell Lucifer how far he had come without him, how he was working with the Winchesters to undo everything Lucifer had done… but that wasn’t true anymore. 

Here he was, holding the archangel’s sword as if it was his, the weight perfect. There he was, hell bent on revenge, on fighting the person whom Lucifer was to fight. He was going to fight the man who had raised him, fight Dean Winchester, and he knew he was leading the hunters coming with him to a slaughter. 

He wasn’t different to Lucifer… not really. He was becoming just like him, and he was going to hurt people because of it… and he didn’t care. 

He would always be Lucifer’s son, and he couldn’t run from that fact. 

“Let’s go,” he said to Mary, walking out the church to find the woman standing to the side of the door, gun drawn just in case. She’d heard everything he’d said, he knew, and yet she said nothing, knowing the words weren’t for her to comment on. She knew what he’d been thinking too, having spent so much time with her self destructive sons hell bent on angsting themselves to death. 

“Are you ok,” Mary asked him as they walked away from Lucifer’s tomb.

“Yes.”

“Are you ok with the sword,” the hunter asked, her hand gently grasping Jack’s. He pulled out her grip though, and only then realised how tight his white knuckled grip was on the smooth metal. 

“Yes,  yes I’m fine,” Jack said, and he stowed the blade away inside his jacket. He couldn’t tell Mary how good it felt to hold the sword there. He was too much like his father. Too much. 

_ I’m not Lucifer. I’m not Lucifer,  _ he recited over and over again trying to drown out the other thoughts worming their way into his brain. 

“I’m fine,” he repeated quietly.

They walked in silence until they reached the car. It felt like an affront to Dean’s baby to bring Lucifer’s blade into the boys’ home. The car had protected them from everything, and yet here he was inviting Lucifer’s presence into it. 

_ I am not Lucifer,  _ Jack repeated, for the umpteenth time. 

_ Then why do you carry his sword like your own? Why does it feel right?  _ His mind replied. 

_ I’m not Lucifer. _

Somewhere, far far away, Jack’s words reached dead ears, reached the ears of a man, an angel, lying in the dark. 

Lying in the Empty. 

For the first time in what seemed like eternity, Lucifer opened his eyes.

_ You’re just like me, son.  _ It seemed like Lucifer wasn’t done yet. Not in the slightest.

xxx

“So, Sammy boy, how does it feel to come home?” Michael asked, taking a step forward towards the shaking man. 

_ Demon,  _ Sam thought.  _ Not man. I don’t deserve that much. I don’t get to call myself human.  _

“Gotta say,” Sam began, trying to draw on his long gone brother’s emotions, “I was hoping you’d roll out the welcome mat.” He had nothing to lose. Maybe Michael could destroy him and put him into the Empty once and for all… 

“Well if I’d known you were coming…” Michael let the sentence hang in the air. Sam didn’t know which Michael he was dealing with; the one who protected him, or the one who hurt him. The archangel was three feet from him, a smile on his face that wasn’t unwelcoming. Two feet. Michael had kept Adam as his meatsuit whilst in Hell. Sam’d made many theories as to why, but overall all he could come up with was that the archangel didn’t want to expose his true self to the impurity of hell, and would willingly destroy Adam to remain as pure as possible. 

What a bastard. 

Michael was one foot from him, and there was not enough Adam left to spare Sam from the blinding glare of the angel’s true self. 

“Sammy Sammy Sammy, what have you done to yourself?” The angel asked, and he brought his hand up to Sam’s chin, forcing him to look Michael in the eye. “Show me,” he said softly. “Show me what you did.”

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Michael tightened his grip on Sam’s jaw as Sam closed his eyes, hiding himself as best he could. “Come on little demon, open your eyes,” the archangel crooned, his grip beginning to burn until Sam’s eyes snapped open with a gasp of pain. “There you are little demon,” Michael said, and he grinned. 

It was not a welcoming grin, not one that would erase Sam’s fear, not one that would grant him a moment’s reprieve from pain. 

The being before him was his torturer, with a malicious glint in his eye and a smile worthy of Pennywise. 

“I’m… I’m not… I’m not your demon,” Sam said, shuddering as the words escaped his lips. He had to have control. He had to have control. He had to… he had nothing. 

He would never have anything again. He would submit and end up nothing but Michael’s bitch. 

He wouldn’t be Michael’s bitch. Never again. 

“You’re my little demon, Sammy. Don’t forget that.” 

Michael’s years in the Cage hadn’t been kind to him. He had been burned away over the centuries, his once shining grace dull around the edges, no longer whole. Pieces of it were greying, falling away, his wings growing black with the ash of hell. His eyes weren’t as blue as they had been before… they were going as red as Lucifer’s, but nowhere near yet. 

But there words was his mind. 

Michael had been rendered insane, his mind split in two. On one hand, he was trying to follow his father’s command, trying to be the good son and defeat the devil, to save Sam from Lucifer and fight his brother. On the other… on the other he had been destroyed, hating his father for abandoning him to his fate, and losing himself to the pain of the Cage. He was impulsive and unpredictable, switching at the drop of a hat. 

“I know!” He exclaimed, his hands dropping to Sam’s shirt, not his face. “I need to welcome you home!” He was almost...childlike. 

Sam stiffened up, holding his breath and trying to overcome the rising panic.

“Come on darling,” Michael drawled, pulling Sam close. “Give me a kiss.” 

Sam tried to pull away. Michael wouldn’t let him. Sam tried to force his lips shut. Michael wouldn’t let him.

Michael leant forward, mashing his lips against Sam’s own. 

And he burned. 

His lips burned, fire ripping through Sam’s own, tearing his mouth to pieces as he tried to pull away with all his might. It was like acid pouring into his mouth, dissolving his teeth and blistering his tongue until it was nothing more than a twitching mass of rotted flesh. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew, he just knew, that blood was dripping down his chin as his skin peeled away, melting down, leaving his bones exposed. 

Sam screamed. 

His vocal chords were destroyed as acid dripped down his throat, filling with blood as holes were made. It went lower, his stomach ripping itself apart. Lower. More pain. His body collapsing in on itself, melting down, burning, bloody, ruined. It was liquifying within a flesh shell, bones grinding down to nothing. 

It was agony. 

He couldn’t scream. He needed to scream. He needed to let the pain out and show Michael how much it hurt. He needed to let the archangel see he was in pain, to make him draw on that angelic side of him, to try and protect himself. 

He couldn’t scream. He could only break apart. 

“Poor little demon,” Michael crooned as Sam was forced to his knees, to his hands, to the floor. “Do you not like my little welcome home? Or do you want more?” 

Sam needed to move, needed to escape, needed to show pain, needed to beg Michael for relief. 

He couldn’t. 

He couldn’t do anything. 

He was simply Michael’s bitch, once and for all. 

 

Xxx

 

Dean was nothing. 

He was a thought, a memory. He didn’t have a thought or a voice. He was nothing, no one. 

Michael couldn’t have been happier. He was almost smug. 

“So, angel grace?” The alpha werewolf asked, his name not one that the archangel cared to remember. 

“ _ Arch _ angel grace,” Michael replied, emphasizing his status. He didn’t want to be taken for one of those insubordinate feather dusters. 

_ Feather dusters,  _ Michael thought.  _ Such a Winchester term.  _ He needed to get rid of that immediately. 

“I heard of your earlier trials,” the alpha said, appearing relaxed yet too tense for it to be real. “I heard of how many of my kind died at your hands. Why should I risk my pack?”

“Well,” Michael said, leaning forward. “I haven’t had such an issue in a long time. I have hundreds of your kind already immune to silver, able to control yourselves through and through. Do you really want to be the only ones lower down on the evolutionary scale?” He sat back, his fingers coming together in front of him. “I’m offering the future here. You’re going extinct, and I’m your only way to survive.”

The alpha was silent for some time, but a quick whistle through his teeth had a young wolf  entering the room for commands. 

“Get the pack. We will be going through with the archangel Michael’s plans.” 

“Good choice,” Michael said, standing up as the pack began to file in. “Now, why don’t you show your pack how it works?” 

He pulled a small vial from his coat pocket, handing it to the man before him. The alpha’s hand shook as he took the vial, popping off the cap and bringing it to his lips. 

He swallowed it. 

They all swallowed it. 

“Good good,” Michael said. “Now, stand by the wall.” They all moved without hesitation, even the alpha. Not a single one showed any resistance to the archangel’s words. “You are to listen closely, because if any of you disobey you will take your lives.” He knew they were listening, knew they would obey without question; such a lovely little side effect of the ingestion of his grace. “Now, you will not draw the attention of any hunters or humans. You will not kill people, you will not be anything other than human to the eyes of the world. You will move to Kansas city, and you will not fight the other supernaturals in the city, and you will await your further instructions. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” the wolves chorused, and they filed out. 

Michael wouldn’t admit it, but the amount of grace he was giving out was taking a toll on him. At first, he had lost some control of Dean Winchester, letting him have a little too much control, but the man had fallen at just the right time, and he was silent now. He had even had just enough grace to open the Cage once again and shove his Sword’s brother into it. 

It wasn’t hard. Not really. He would never forget how to throw someone into the Cage, never forget how to draw on his absent father’s power to push a brother into a place of destruction. 

Sam Winchester would rot in the Cage forever, and Dean WInchester would remain silent so long as he was locked away. 

All was good. 


	11. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't actually know where anything is. Any references to geography are from google maps, and I've had to pick landmarks or similar because I have no clue how to read American road signs - I'm from England! What are all your weird numbers on blue and red signs with i things to tell you where you are? I just dropped a pin on google maps and found the nearest green thing. Sorry if I wasn't accurate.

Jack couldn’t put the sword down. He just couldn’t. 

At first… at first he’d needed to keep it near him, just to make sure that he didn’t lose the one weapon they had to kill Michael. Then… then he’d simply wanted to keep the taint of his father from touching anyone else, even through the sword, but then… in the end all he’d wanted was to hold the sword, like he couldn’t put it down.  He knew that he should put it down, leave it somewhere safe in the hotel, but he just couldn’t not have it on him. He was almost drawn to it, drawn to the power of the man he despised. 

“Jack?” Mary asked, her hand on his arm, drawing Jack’s attention from the blade to the women besides him. “Jack you need to put that down,” Mary continued, trying to take the sword from him, but Jack reacted quickly and turned the blade on her instead, the chair he’d been sitting on crashing to the floor. “Woah woah, take it easy,” Mary said, raising her hands, staying that way until Jack blinked a few times before relaxing. “Are you ok?” 

“I… yes, sorry I- I don’t know what came over me,” Jack replied, standing up and stowing the sword away in his sleeve before realising what he was doing. 

“I know, boy,” Rowena said, entering the room. “Daddy seems to be rubbing off on your wee soul.”

“No, no I’m fine,” Jack replied, standing his chair up again and taking a seat, his back straight and tense, hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly. “I’m fine,” he repeated firmly at the sight of Mary’s concerned expression. 

“Yes and I’m not a witch,” Rowena replied, setting the book of the damned on the table and opening it to a bookmarked page. 

“Do you have it?” Mary asked, going to look at the book, and Jack joining them. 

“No, I’m just showing you something that isn’t at all helpful just to waste more time,” Rowena said, rolling her eyes. “Winchesters,” she muttered under her breath.

Mary shot her an exasperated look, but the smile on her lips told a different story. 

“So… so this will keep an archangel frozen?” Jack asked. 

“Frozen, immobile, unable to move,” Rowena replied. 

“But not powerless?” Mary asked. 

“No, so try to get him whilst he’s surprised,” Rowena said. 

“And Dean?” Mary asked, unaware of how this would help her son. “How do we get him back?” Rowena fell silent at that, Jack not daring to take his eyes off the spell before him. What would it be like to be unable to move, to be trapped in your own skin? Would it work on him? He was half archangel after all, though maybe not quite half anymore. 

“We can’t, not unless you know how to reach him without his angel, and we can’t get to Sam whilst Michael’s around, so sorry dear but your son is gone. Such a shame, I liked the moose.” Rowena’s words weren’t taken well, not by Mary.

“My sons are in there, and we are getting them out,” the woman growled, turning Rowena to face her, her hand gripping the woman’s expensive fitted jacket. 

“Dean is an archangel’s vessel and Sam’s his playtoy. Be grateful that you have the nephilim,” Rowena replied, her eyes glowing purple in threat. 

“They’re my sons,” Mary said. 

“It’s your boys or the world. I lost mine to this cause, and I won’t let you throw his sacrifice away for your selfish desire,” tears were in the witch’s eyes. The redhead didn’t speak of her son anymore, but it still hurt her to think of Crowley, and they all forgot that sometimes. Crowley may have been an asshole, but he was still her son. 

“I can’t lose them,” Mary whispered. 

“Then we lose the world.” Rowena picked up the book and stormed out the room, leaving Jack and Mary alone in the hotel room, Jack back in his own mind, Mary bent over the table as she tried to suppress the tears threatening to spill. 

She’d lost her sons already. She just needed to admit it. 

 

Xxx

 

Michael was happy. His vessel was fully functional, his plans running smoothly, his monsters in position. 

So why was he feeling like something was wrong?

The answer came when he thought of what had become of the younger Winchester, trapped in the Cage for the remainder of his life. He felt… guilt. He felt guilty for throwing him in there. 

He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. And yet he did. 

He’d removed Dean WInchester, he should have no feelings or interference from him, and yet he knew that the emotions weren’t his. Or maybe they were. 

Maybe his Sword had left something behind… maybe he had rubbed off on him… 

Concerned, Michael allowed himself to take a visit to the dark corner that the man had retreated to. Dean sat curled in the corner, hands covering his ears as he rocked back and forward, unaware of what was going on around him, unable to do anything but live inside the only memories Michael allowed him; killing Cas, and throwing his brother to hell. 

“Sammy,” Dean whimpered, rocking harder, faster. “Sammy I’m sorry.” Again and again, Michael watched as Dean fell apart, and yet with ever whimper of his brother’s name, Michael felt Dean’s emotion a little more. 

He needed to work fast if he was going to create paradise.

xxx

_ 10080 minutes.  _ A week. He was… he wanted to say alive, but he wasn’t alive. He hadn’t survived either. He was just… 

That was it. He was just there. He sat and begged and spoke when spoken to. He laughed and dreamed and ate. He screamed and cried and bled. Again and again, Michael’s mindsets clashed and switched, pain to apologies at the crack of a whip, and he played the part every time. 

He’d go from consoling the archangel, helping hope with the emotion from inflicting pain on him, to chained up and stripped of his skin. He simply… did. That was all he did. He just existed for the archangel’s enjoyment, whether it was through pain or comfort. He’d call him ‘Sir’ and ‘Master’, he’d sit at his feet in moments of reprieve when the archangel was lost in thought. He’d simply be. 

He lost himself and became Michael’s toy. His plaything. 

His bitch. 

He was Michael’s bitch and nothing more. 

_ 20160 minutes.  _ Two weeks. 

Again and again, minute by minute, a piece of him lost with every second he counted.  _ It  _ counted. It wouldn’t consider itself human, wouldn’t refer to itself as anything even remotely human, not even giving itself a name or a pronoun such as ‘he’. It didn’t deserve it. It’d lost everything. Everything except it’s black eyes. No matter how many minutes passed, how many times it lost its heart or skin or fingers or dignity, it still had black eyes. 

At the end of it all, all the thing was was a demon, and nothing more. 

Sam Winchester died the moment the first drop of demonic blood passed his lips. All that remained was… it. This. The thing. 

Michael’s bitch. 

_ 40320 minutes. 80640 minutes _ . It counted to 100000 before realising how stupid it was. Time was meaningless in the Cage, in Hell. All it had was Michael and eternity. 

It stopped counting. 

 

Xxx

 

“They’re ready,” Jack said, coming to Mary and Bobby in the hotel room paid for by Rowena, the other gathered hunters in various motels around the area. A few of those hunters were outside, having come with news on what their respective groups were like in terms of readiness to fight, and yet hadn’t been allowed upstairs because their clothes would “ruin the decor,” as the manager had said when the band of ten hunters had stepped into the lobby. 

“And not a moment too soon,” Bobby replied, looking up from the map spread out on the table, once which showed the layout of Kansas city, with the sewer lines marked on. 

“Jack, are you sure you want to fight?” Mary asked, coming over to the nephilim boy and laying a hand on his shoulder. 

“I have to,” the boy replied, determination in his eyes. They’d had this discussion many times, every time the answer being the same; Jack would fight, and he’d wield Lucifer’s blade. 

But Mary still had concerns; she’d seen the way he looked at the sword, seen the way he’d lose himself in it, and how he’d never let it off his person. She was worried about him, and yet she couldn’t figure out what was going on. Not really. Rowena had made some side remarks, but Lucifer was dead, so he couldn’t be influencing Jack. 

Lucifer was dead. He had to be. Right?

_ Right,  _ Mary thought, not willing to dwell on the idea that another archangel was coming for them. Not now. 

“Well fighting or not, we need to figure this out!” Bobby barked out, recalling Mary to the table. 

“Sorry Bobby,” Mary replied, and she returned to her previous post. 

“Right, so,” Bobby began, pointing at map. “I will take half the hunters here,” he indicated the Mt. Washington cemetery, “and we will make some noise. Work our way into the city and all that, get some of these monsters out of your way.” He pulled his hand back and pointed to the the red pen that covered the map, starting from right by the cemetery, leading to the building used as Michael’s headquarters. “You and the remaining lot will take the sewer to the bastard’s hide out and they will sweep it clean whilst you two and the witch take on Michael. Clear?” 

It was. It was almost too clear. 

Mary had seen what happened when people fought back against Michael. Bobby had seen even more. They both knew that they weren’t coming back, that there would be so much blood, that they were planning something that probably wouldn’t work, and yet they had to try. 

And Mary would try to save her sons. 

She’d returned to the bunker once, Michael having left already. That had been a few days ago, or maybe longer. She couldn’t remember anymore. She’d hunted for her son, but she’d only found the remains of demon corpses, the stench of sulphur burning her nose. Jack had stood by her side as they burnt them, then as they cleaned out the dungeon, trying not to think of whose blood was on their hands, or what Sam had gone through. 

They’d only been putting off the inevitable. They couldn’t forever though. 

Castiel’s body was still in the kitchen, his wings still burned into the floor and half up the wall, his face almost peaceful.

The pair hadn’t shed a tear as they wrapped his body in white sheets, as they carried him outside and built a pyre, as they lay him on top. They only cried when his body went up in flames, when they knew he wasn’t coming back. 

None of them were. 

Mary and Jack had stood there stoically, watching as Cas’ body burnt to ash. They needed him. They needed him desperately, and he was gone. Maybe they’d see him where they were going. 

After all, Jack didn’t think he’d go to heaven, being half angel and all, and Mary had a suspicion that Billie would throw her into the Empty along with her sons, just to make sure that all Winchesters were gone and not returning. 

Maybe they would see Cas again. 

Maybe Mary would see her friend again. 

Maybe Jack would see his father again. 

 

Xxx

 

Michael looked out on the city, his city. Kansas city. 

His monsters were under strict instructions: leave no humans. They each had their territory, they each had their own ways of working, but they all shared one command. No humans. The archangel didn’t care if the humans joined his army of monsters, or if they became the next day’s lunch, but he did care whether a human was roaming the streets of his city. 

No humans. 

They were nearly ready. Give him three days to finalise all the locations and numbers, and he’d sweep through the US in a week. Give him a day in Europe and he’d have the continent in ruins. His monsters would destroy the US whilst he ravaged the other continents, and when he was done he’d return to where it all started and watch as America burned. 

He would win, and there wasn’t a plaid wearing Winchester to stop him.

 

Xxx

 

Mary Winchester didn’t wear plaid. Instead, it was jeans and a plain white shirt for her, a brown leather jacket on top.

Jack Kline didn’t wear plaid. Just a grey t-shirt and some jeans, Dean’s navy military jacket on top to keep out the cold. 

Rowena MacLeod didn’t wear plaid. She wouldn’t go near the stuff. After all, she actually had taste. You would see her wearing anything worth over five hundred of whatever the currency was, her hair perfect and makeup on point, but you would never,  _ never,  _ see her in plaid. 

They weren’t the perfect group, they weren’t the most functional group (well, Mary and Jack functioned very well, but Rowena brought complications), but they were fighting. They were organising and fighting and they were going to win. 

They had to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, an admission from me: I don't really know where I'm going with this, because I had this all planned and perfected, and then I fell asleep and forgot, so if it takes me some time to update from here on out, it is because I'm trying to piece back together my plot because I was too stupid to write it down. So, if anyone would like to suggest some plot line/ending/detail/character you want to say something or do something, please say.  
> ALSO!: what should I do with Rowena and Mary, because I think that I have a base for it, but i don't know if it would work... ops?


	12. The voices that control us

_ They’re all going to burn,  _ Michael thought smugly, looking out from his penthouse suite. 

_ They don’t deserve it,  _ a small voice replied, but he quickly snuffed out the thought. Dean Winchester was a necessary problem; he needed his soul within the vessel to function properly, but his soul was what made him special. The soul separated his True Vessel from any other vessel. It was infuriating. 

_ I don’t care,  _ Michael responded. 

_ I do,  _ the other voice replied, forcing images of the world through his mind. 

Two boys on the fourth of July, fireworks above them in the park. A child taking his first steps, moving towards a brother with his arms open. Four people in a car, some loud rock music blasting through their ear drums as they raced down an empty highway. 

_ “ENOUGH!”  _ Michael roared, his true voice destroying glasses and windows around him.

“Sir?” Someone asked, opening the room door to check on the issue, blood dripping down the side of their head from their ears. Werewolf, by the looks of him.

Michael was, unfortunately, not in the mood to speak to any stain, and the werewolf paid the price with their exploding head. 

“What have you done to me, Dean Winchester?” Michael muttered, delving inside to see the man rocking backwards and forwards, muttering two names over and over again. 

“Cas… Cas I’m so sorry… Castiel, I didn’t mean it” he began, tears and moans escaping him, before the memory ended and a new one replaced it. “Sammy… my Sammy… I’m so sorry baby brother.”

Again and again, the broken man replayed the moments, unable to fight back against the torment, unable to do anything to Michael. He was truly trapped, and yet not at all. 

“What are you doing to me?” Michael growled, the man shuddering at the archangel’s voice.  _ “What is it?”  _ He demanded, hitting the man, forcing him against the wall with an arm against his throat. 

Dean’s eyes began to focus, leaving his hallucination and entering the real… real-ish world. Fear automatically filled his eyes, his body tensing up in fear.

“Mi-Mich…. Master,” Dean stuttered, his eyes downcast, but the damage had been done already; Dean’s whole focus was on his brother and lover, every fibre of his being crying out for his family. Michael… Michael was within that body, that vessel, and Dean’s emotion seemed to be strong enough to affect even him.

“You’re just not willing to go quietly, are you?” Michael seethed, allowing the man away from the wall, and returning to the real world, forcing the man back into his memories. Maybe he would feel the affects, but it was much better than the unbearable fighting he’d had before.

Shaking out his arms, straightening his suit jacket, Michael returned to the view of his city, a smile on his face. 

He should have killed the brother. He should have thrown his body into the empty his Sword had been promised. He shouldn’t have saved some part of the boy’s soul. 

Why had he done that? What on earth had made him do that? 

_ Dean Winchester,  _ some part of him said.  _ He made you care for the boy. He made you care for your Sammy.  _

Michael let slip a growl, his voice shattering any remaining glass. “He’s not my Sammy. I don’t care.” 

_ Sammy… my Sammy… always save Sammy. Always care for Sammy.  _

He’d saved some of Sam WInchester, however small, in the most painful way possible. For Dean. The moment he finished his new world he would go and shatter that cage into pieces. 

Then the shrieking started. 

 

Xxx

 

Mary, Rowena, and Jack waited for the signal, for the explosion that would make the monsters start running to them. 

They knew that they weren’t to see Bobby again, that the people above them were to die for their cause, but they didn’t stop. The sewers were disgusting, and yet they didn’t encounter monsters until they were close to directly under the building. 

Vampires awaited in the darkness, hiding from the light as they awaited their own doses of Michael’s grace. They were recently turned, and unfortunately the gifts that Michael had granted them weren’t passed on to each vampire turned. 

Machetes in hand, the group of twelve hunters - well, ten hunters, one nephilim, and one witch - quickly dispatched the opposition of twenty. Luckily, the hunters were well trained, and the vamps had no clue what they were doing. It was an easy fight. 

Through the sewers, up through the grate that lead into the main base car park, and the hunters were ready.

Rowena had her spells, blood sigils painted onto everyone’s bodies, ready for her spell to bind the archangel. 

Mary had her gun, loaded up with angel killing bullets, created from Castiel’s own melted down blade. 

Jack had his swo- his fathe-  _ Lucifer’s  _ sword… the sword he couldn’t put down.  _ Use me,  _ it seemed to say.  _ Shed blood in my name, son,  _ the voice seemed to say. 

_ I am not my father,  _ Jack thought, over and over, repeating the words like a mantra.  _ I am not my father.  _

_ Not yet,  _ the voice replied. 

xxx

Michael heard them as they fought their way up to him. He heard them as they stepped onto his floor, and he heard them as they stopped outside, ready to charge in at him. He heard them, and yet he did nothing. 

_ Mum… Jack… my son…  _ Michael fought the tormenting thoughts, trying to focus on the task at hand, on killing the people behind that door. He tried so hard, and yet whenever he found silence a new thought would come to mind…  _ Cas. Cas I’m so sorry. Cas please come back… I love you.  _

_ ENOUGH!  _ Michael tried to roar, trying to fight the hunter, trying to control his vessel, but the more he focused on Dean the more he heard the pain. It was too much, it was making him weak, it was wrong, 

_ Sammy, Sammy I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry Sam. It’s all my fault.  _

The hunters took a deep breath, their number fewer by three now, and they turned the door handle. 

Into the room they poured, Mary, Jack and Rowena bringing up the rear, and they each pressed a bloodied palm to their exposed chests as they surrounded the archangel incapacitated by his own thoughts, and now by the spell that Rowena chanted. 

“ Angeli me odisse! Aufer columbae !  Angeli me odisse,” the witch chanted, her eyes purple and the hunters’ chests glowing. Only Jack remained unchanged.

Michael fought against the spell, against Dean Winchester, against everything that was fighting him. He called his monsters to stand by him, but they were just a far off thing he couldn’t grasp. 

“ Angeli me odisse! Aufer columbae !  Angeli me odisse,” The witch shouted, her power flooding the room and causing the temperature to rise. 

Michael felt as invisible chains wrapped around him, weighing him down, immobilising his grace. He felt as he became trapped, as his power was held under lock and key, the witch keeping her arm outstretched as she panted, struggling to hold him. 

“Jack, now!” Mary said, and Jack raised the archangel blade as he stepped forward. 

“Let Dean go,” Jack demanded, his voice an icy rage. 

“And why would I do that?” Michael countered, ostensibly calm, but raging within, throwing everything he had against his vessel’s thoughts, against the witch’s spell. 

“We’ll kill you,” Jack replied.

“If you were going to you would have done it already,” Michael remarked. Jack fell silent at that, but it was Mary who came through, not taking a step forward lest she break the spell. 

“Dean, I know you’re in there,” she began. 

“He can’t hear you,” Michael said, glad that the spell didn’t seem to affect his mouth… or maybe it was meant to. “Dean is long gone.”

“Dean, we need you to come back. We need you to help us, to save us, and to help us find Sam,” Mary continued, as if Michael hadn’t spoken. 

Rowena panted harder, her breaths coming short. 

At the mention of Sam Michael hesitated, Dean’s emotions for his brother flaring up, but he forced them down once more. 

“How much longer can you hold me?” Michael asked, looking directly at Rowena, feeling as a tendril of his power returned to him. Not enough to do anything, but enough to know that the witch was failing. 

“I can do this forever, deary,” Rowena replied, but the beads of sweat on her forehead suggested otherwise. 

“What happens when you falter, hmm?” Michael asked. “Will you be willing to kill your precious Dean?” He looked to Mary and Jack. “And what about Sammy, alone in the Cage? How will you get him out without me?” 

He hit the spot. 

“What did you do to my son?” Mary asked in a horrified whisper, her face draining of all colour. “Where is my son?” She roared, slightly louder, needing to take a step forward, buta small noise from Rowena held her back. Just. 

“I shoved so much demon blood down your son’s throat that his soul wasn’t human anymore. I threw him back into the Cage where he belongs, locked away forever in torment.” Michael almost sounded like he was gloating. 

Mary was practically vibrating with rage, her jaw clenched tight as she tried to control herself. 

“You locked him up?” Jack asked, deadly rage in his voice, unlike anything Mary had ever heard from him. 

“He was demonic scum. He deserved it.” Michael almost had his power again, almost was able to break through the spell completely. 

Jack tightened his grip on his sword, trying to fight the rage that had come over him. It wasn’t normal rage; it was like ice shooting through his veins, filling his core where his grace had once rested. It was so cold it burned.

_ “Lucifer,”  _ Michael whispered, his eyes wide, before Jack charged forward with the blade angled up to strike Dean’s heart. 

“NO!” Mary roared, leaping forward to hold Jack back, but he had the strength of an angel again, and he threw her to the floor as he tried to reach Michael. 

Who wasn’t there. Michael wasn’t there. He was by the window, his own archangel blade in his hand, his body ready for a fight. 

He was ready to fight Lucifer. He didn’t know how, or why, but his brother’s grace shined through the former nephilim’s body, his brother’s grace inside him, fueling him, almost having taken over completely. It wasn’t possible, and yet it was happening. 

Jack lurched forward, Rowena trying to use a spell to stop him but too weak, Mary trying to hold him back but she wasn’t strong enough. Other hunters began to fire at Michael, their bullets but a small issue to the archangel. 

It was the former nephilim who was the problem, surging forward and colliding his sword with Michael’s. They twisted and turned, stricking each other’s blades, each one looming to kill the other, but Michael was stronger than Lucifer/Jack, and soon he had his blade poised over the boy’s heart. 

“Any last words?” He asked, pushing the blade into his chest....

Only to stop as blood began to bloom. 

_ That’s my son!  _ Dean yelled, awake and at large. 

The witch’s spell hadn’t just held down Michael’s power, it had removed it. It had removed all the power that he’d been using to hold Dean trapped, keep him inactive. 

_ You get your hands off my son!  _ Dean cried within his head, using everything he had to force the archangel to stop, to let Jack go. The archangel wasn’t aware of the bullets hitting him in the real world, or of the fact that Jack had dropped to the floor and was being dragged away by Mary. 

_ He is not your son!  _ Michael retorted.  _ He is an abomination! He isn’t even your blood! You are mine! _

_ Family doesn’t end in blood,  _ Dean replied, pushing with all his might, forcing Michael to submit, to give him control. He used every memory he had of his family to build a cage around Michael, to keep him contained. 

And then he was in charge. 

Collapsing to his knees, Dean looked up at his mum, at Jack, and he nodded. “It’s ok,” he said, taking deep breaths, “I’ve got him.”   
“Dean?” Mary asked, wary of coming close to him, remembering what had happened last time. 

“Yeah, I’m back,” he replied, a small smile on his face.

“How do we know it’s really him?” One of the hunters, Maggie, asked. 

“We have some enochian handcuffs at the bunker. I’ll wear as many as you want until we can got this son of a bitch out of my head,” Dean offered. 

“He’s still in there?” Jack asked, the icy rage that had filled him now controllable, but not gone. 

“Yeah, but I got the sucker,” Dena replied, and he revelled in the feeling of the floor under his hands as he pushed himself to his feet. “It’s really me guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone interested in a series about the archangels before and during Lucifer's fall? Something I was thinking of writing... also maybe a prequel about Sam - what if Brady got Sam for Azazel early?  
> Anyone interested?


	13. I'm sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late, but I needed to figure out how to write this chapter!!!  
> (I'm lying, I've had this planned for weeks. I just was too tired to post last week ;))  
> PS: Sorry?

“Dean,” Mary whispered, coming forward to take her son in her arms, but Dean backed away from her, almost bending over and falling as he hit a chair behind him. 

“No, mum, stay back,” Dean said, a small grunt of pain escaping his lips; Michael was slamming himself against the wall, and he was struggling to stop him. “Just… just stay back, please,” he begged. 

“Dean,” Mary began, but keeping her distance, “it’s going to be ok.”

“No,” Dean replied, standing upright once again, tears in his eyes. “No, mum, no. I- I… I killed Cas. I killed him, and- and Sammy, my Sammy…” Mary had never seen her son show any more emotion than necessary before, and yet here he was, tears falling from his eyes in a room full of people. He just… he had spent his whole life, given his whole life, protecting Sam and Cas, and he had betrayed them. He had killed them. He had destroyed them. 

He had nothing left. 

“Dean, where is Sam?” Mary asked, ice flooding her veins. 

“I’m sorry mum, I’m so sorry,” Dean whispered. 

“What did you do?” Rowena asked, her voice drawing Dean’s attention, and he finally seemed to register the presence of everyone else in the room. 

“I didn’t mean to… I tried not to…” He stuttered, but quickly steeled himself with a deep breath. “I fed him demon blood, I made him a demon… I put him into the Cage.” 

No one spoke, no one breathed. 

“Well that’s just perfect,” Rowena said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Of all the things, you had to do that?” Dean winced, and Mary whirled onto Rowena, almost growling as she faced the witch. 

“He didn’t do it,” Mary snarled, getting up in Rowena’s face. “It isn’t his fault.”

“He said yes,” Rowena pointed out, “and because of him we are in a city full of monsters, with no angelic help, an archangel trapped in someone’s mind, and a bunch of hunters useless when it comes to the hoard we’re facing. Not to mention the nephilim with anger issues.”

Mary’s eyes quickly fell on Jack, who stiffened at the address, his eyes on the sword in his hand, his mouth twisting into a grimace. 

“What do we do?” One of the hunters asked - Maggie. 

“We fight,” Mary replied. “We go back the way we came, and we fight our way through the monsters down there.” 

“We can’t win,” Rowena replied. 

“Then we go down fighting,” Jack said, nodding to Dean. Dean, in turn, simply stared at Jack, at the boy whom he’d seen so much of Lucifer in only moments before. Jack… the boy he saw as his son… holding an archangel blade, who had been prepared to kill him, who he had tried to kill… 

Something was wrong with him, with both of them. Something big. 

“Rowena can you get us out of here?” Dean asked, pulling himself into his soldier mentality. He had to take control. He had to ignore Michael’s bombardment, he had to get his family out. That was all he had now. 

“My magic isn’t infinite. I have limits,” the witch replied, seeming to hate herself for saying the words. 

“Great,” Dean said, trying to ignore the headache he had, banging against his skull. “Mum I can’t… I don’t think I can hold him much longer,” Dean said, his breath beginning to come short. Michael was doubling and redoubling his efforts, using Dean’s increasing panic to find holes in his mind. 

And he was coming through. 

“Just a little longer, Dean,” Mary said. “Just hold on.”   
“Mum, promise me you’ll get Sam and Cas back. Promise me,” he demanded, Michael’s power bleeding into his words, the archangel’s true voice beginning to ring through the room. 

“Dean what are you-” 

“Promise me, mum,” Dean demanded, coming towards her and grabbing her shoulder. “Promise me.”

“I promise, Dean, but-” Mary said, trying to take his hand, only for Dean to move away. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Pushing Mary back into Rowena, Dean spun towards Jack and used his momentum to overpower the nephilim, tearing the archangel blade from his hand and getting to his feet, the blade pointed at his chest. 

“I can’t stop Michael from killing you,” Dean said, whispering the words. Mary was back on her feet, her hands out as if to placate Dean, and Jack had murder in his eyes; Dean had stolen his blade, after all. 

“We will sort this out Dean, we always do,” Mary said, desperate to save her son. 

“Not this time,” Dean replied, steeling himself to die. He’d done it before, he could do it again. “You can’t bring me back. You can’t risk… you can’t risk  _ him _ coming back with me,” he said, his eyes never leaving his mother’s. 

“Dean!” Mary cried, utterly desperate. 

“It’s the only way,” Dean replied, pushing the blade through his chest, through his heart, as Michael and Mary, Jack and Rowena, all screamed his name, all screamed for him to stop. 

Dean didn’t hear it though. 

All he could hear was the scream of Michael, his grace burning up and flooding the room. His eyes burned out, his body felt like it was on fire. 

And then there was nothing. 

He fell to the floor in a heap, wings charred into the floor and walls behind him, furniture around him shattering as the grace exploded, windows shattering. The monsters in the city began to scream, realising that their master was no longer alive, could no longer control them, and they ran.

Dean had killed Michael. He had caused the monsters to run, to leave the city. He had saved his mum, his son, the hunters, and Rowena. 

He had saved them all. 

And he had died to do so. 

xxx

Mary watched in horror as her Dean’s body fell to the floor. 

Jack watched, helpless, as the man like his father died, his own blade lodged in his chest. 

Rowena watched… shocked… helpless to save the man who had called on her so many times… 

The hunters rejoiced, not caring that Dean was dead, not caring that Mary had just lost two of her sons in less than an hour… they only cared that the world was saved, that they could live, that Michael was gone. They didn’t care that Mary’s whole world had just been destroyed. Tey simply left the way they’d came, the monsters having fled the city, only the weak ones remaining, and they took them out easily. 

“Mary,” Jack began, taking a step towards Dean’s… he couldn’t say it. 

“Don’t,” the woman replied, her heart set in stone. She’d done this before. She’d lost family before. She knew how to cope… 

“Mary, I’m so sorry,” Jack said, knowing that if he had held onto the blade Dean would still be here. 

“I said don’t,” Mary repeated, and she left the room, only stopping to say one sentence to Rowena: “Burn his body.” Rowena simply nodded, Dean’s body igniting with some choice words. She gave one last look to Jack before following the hunter out the door. 

_ Look what you did,  _ a voice whispered into Jack’s mind. Cunning. Cruel. Mocking.  _ He’s dead because of you… all because of you.  _

“Stop it,” Jack spat. “Stop talking.”

_ You let him die. You could have stopped him but you didn’t. You let him die. This is all your fault. You hurt everyone you touch. You did this. You hurt everyone you love. You’re just like me. You’re just like me. You’re just like me. Like me. Me.  _

“STOP!” Jack roared in response, the furniture around him shattering as he bellowed. All that was left was the blood coated angel blade, lying in a pile of ashes that had once been Dean Winchester. “I’m nothing like you,” Jack said, picking up the blade and stowing it away. “I am Jack Kline. I am not my father. I am Jack Kline. I am not my father.”

_ You are just like me. You destroy everything.  _

“I am Jack Kline. I am not my father.” He walked out the door, making his way down the stairs.

_ Your father is Dean Winchester. Don’t be like him. You don’t want to be anything like your father.  _

“I am Jack Kline. I am not my father.” Further down, the blade almost heavier in his pocket. 

_ You are nothing like the righteous man, the man who saves people, who saves the world. You destroy.  _

“I am Jack Kline. I am not Dean.” His power, his ever growing power, was humming within him.  

_ You are Jack Kline. You are not a Winchester.  _

“I am Jack Kline. I am not a Winchester.” Winchesters didn’t care what the consequences of their actions were. They broke things that needed to be saved, and saved things that needed to be destroyed. They were useless. They were wrong.  

_ You are Jack.  _

“I am Jack Kline.”

_ You are Jack. My son.  _

“I am Jack Kline. Your son.”

_ You are Jack. My son.  _

“I am Jack. Your son.” 

_ You are Jack. My son. You are just like me.  _

“I am Jack. I am Lucifer’s son. I am just like him.”  _ My Name is Jack. I am Lucifer’s son. I am just like him. I am Lucifer’s son. I am just like him. I am just like him.  _

_ You destroy whatever you want. You are just like me.  _

_ I destroy what I want. I am just like Lucifer.  _

“We don’t have forever boy. Hurry up so that you can drag me back to save your precious Winchesters,” Rowena called, following Mary into the sewers, her dislike of the sewers obvious in her voice. 

“Winchesters,” Jack sneered under his breath. 

_ Winchesters need to die. They need to die and I need to come back.  _

Winchesters needed to be erased. They needed to die. Sam Winchester was still in existence. He needed to die. Mary Winchester was still alive. She needed to die. Dean Winchester was dead. He needed to stay that way. To kill Sam, he needed Rowena to get him out of the Cage only momentarily. To kill Mary, he needed to be close to her. To keep Dean dead, he needed to kill Rowena. 

_ Winchesters need to die. They need to stay dead. I need to come back.  _

“What was that dear?” Rowena asked, calling back through the tunnels. 

“Nothing,” Jack replied, his voice only just audible thanks to the slight echo. 

_ Get me back son. Get me back and get rid of them,  _ Lucifer whispered, right into Jack’s ear. 

_ I will get you back, and I will get rid of them,  _ Jack replied, a smile too similar to Lucifer’s upon his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry?  
> Umm... I know I said I'd give a happy ending but.... uh..... I dunno I'll sort it out.


	14. Make them beg for death

 

“Right then, let’s get this over with,” summoning the new king of Hell into the bunker’s library, a devil’s trap spray painted in the centre. The dungeon would have been more appropriate, but the trio knew that they would have to let the king go for any chance of success, andan iron trap may set the wrong impression. It would also be a bitch to break and fix. 

“Well well,” a smartly dressed older demon said, appearing in the centre of the trap as Rowena’s spell dissipated. “A Winchester, a witch, and the devil himself. I’m honoured.”

“I think we would know if the devil were here, don’t you think?” Rowena asked, looking round to Jack with a faint sign of fear. 

“Yes, you would,” the demon said, squinting as he looked to Jack. “But nephilim or not, he is the sporn of the Devil.”   
“Thank you for the ancestry lecture, but I think you’ll find us after something else,” Mary cooly replied, unwilling to show this demon any sign of her being affected by his words. First Michael, and now the demon. Something was wrong with Jack. “Jack, take a walk,” Mary said to the side, knowing that Jack could hear her. 

“I want to stay,” Jack replied, needing to know what was going to happen. 

“Please Jack, just go for a bit.” Mary couldn’t have him here, couldn’t have the problems he brought, for the time being. Knowing that he was expected to comply, Jack turned and left the room, ensuring that Mary heard him as he climbed the stairs and left the bunker. 

“Let me guess,” the demon drawled at last, coming to the edge of the devil’s trap that bound him. “It has something to do with a particularly tall floppy haired man currently sporting black eyes and a bitch-like nature?” The demon smirked, his hands clasped behind his back. “We all know about the horrors that Sam Winchester has gone through at the hands of his new archangel master. His screams echo throughout hell.”

Mary’s blood ran cold, her fingers curling into fists. Sam was in the Cage. Sam was being tortured. Sam was… 

“What do you mean, black eyes?” Mary asked. 

“I mean, this,” the demon replied, his eyes flicking over to his pitch black ones. Demon eyes. “The not so little Sammy Winchester is a little bit more demonic.”

_ No,  _ Mary thought, unable to comprehend the demon’s words.  

_ Oh Lord not another thing for me to sort,  _ Rowena thought, desperate for a beach in the Bahamas, as far from the name ‘Winchester’ as she could get.

“Well, thanks for that bit, but we need something else,” Rowena said, taking over from Mary when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak. 

“Oh really?” The king replied. 

“We want access to the Cage,” Rowena said.

“And in return? What benefit do I get from having another Winchester in the world?” 

“We won’t hunt you,” Mary said, finally coming back to herself. 

“No can do, sweetheart,” the demon replied, shaking his head. “I need something a bit more substantial than that. Hell’s numbers are slightly depleted after all…”

“You want my soul,” Mary said, realising just what having her son back would cost. 

“Bingo!” A gleeful smile filled the demon’s face. “Six months.”  

“One year,” Mary countered. 

“Six months or no deal. I need more demons, and you need your son.” The king knew he had her, knew that she would agree. She was desperate, after all. 

“I want Dean back from heaven too, or else no deal,” Mary demanded, wanting to play for everything she could. 

“Two Winchesters…” the king mused, tapping his fingers against his chin. “Four months, and you can have Dean Winchester, as well as access to the Cage for twenty four hours,” the king finally said, his offer clearly final. 

“Mary,” Rowena warned, but knowing it was futile; she knew just what losing a child could do to you, after all, and she knew how far a mother would go to get their child back. 

“Four months,” Mary whispered, taking a step forward, her foot crossing the trap’s boundary. “Deal.”

“Pucker up, sweetheart.”   
Mary took one more step forward, her lips meeting the demon’s, every fibre of her being telling her to run, to stop. Every fibre, except those in her heart, telling her to save her sons one last time. 

The kiss broke quickly, the demon wrapping his arm around her waist as he whispered into her ear. “Meet me here in an hour for your precious Cage trip.” Once Mary broke the trap the king was gone, and a crash echoing from the kitchen had the trio turning to find Dean stumble out of the corridor nearby. 

“What the hell is going on!” He demanded, looking around at his shell shocked mother and an exasperated Rowena. 

“Why don’t you ask the woman with a contract on her soul,” Rowena drawled, and Mary cringed. 

“Mum?” Dean asked, taking a step forward. “Mum, tell me you didn’t.” Dean walked over to Mary when the woman wouldn’t answer, taking her by the shoulders and forcing her to look him in his tear filled eyes. “Mum! Please tell me you didn’t sell your soul!” 

“I had to,” she whispered, her hand coming up to cup his face. “I had to save you!”

“No, mum. You didn’t. You shouldn’t have,” Dean replied, embracing his mother in a tight hug. “How long?” He asked at last, letting her go. It seemed that a chick flick moment was required at this point. 

“Four months,” Mary replied, not looking her son in the eye.

“Those sons of bitches,” Dean swore, throwing the nearest object - a chair - across the room. “You sold your soul for me, and only got four months?” 

“Don’t forget the other one.” Rowena drawled, too annoyed with the eldest Winchester to care about who told Dean of his mother’s suicidal plans. 

“What?” Dean demanded, whipping his head around. 

“We can get Sam too. We can get him from the Cage,” Mary said, needing Dean to understand. 

“Mum!” He cried, hands combing through his hair. “Why?” His voice broke on that word. That one word. 

“I had to,” was all Mary replied, and neither said anything else for some time. 

“Look, I know this is emotional for you Winchesters,” Rowena said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “but we have to get the handsome one now, or else this deal was for nothing.”

“You shouldn’t have done this,” Dean said, before stalking off towards his good friend Jack Daniels. 

“Well,” Rowena said with a huff of breath, “that could have gone better.”   
“Shut up,” Mary replied, stalking past the witch towards her own room intending to get everything she might need to save her son. “Be ready in an hour!” She called back, leaving the witch to decide what she wanted to do next. 

 

Xxx

 

“Father,” Jack said, praying to the Devil, whom he knew was paying attention. “Father, I need help. I don’t know what to do, but I do know that I can’t get rid of the Winchesters without you.” He waited a moment, trying to sense his father. 

He was about to give up when he felt his power hum beneath his skin. His power was weak still, but it grew stronger every time he felt his father, every time he was not alone. 

“Father,” Jack repeated, slightly more power and conviction in his voice as he searched for his father through the world, trying to find his grace. “Father I need you, please,” he whispered to the dark, his eyes flaring up with rings of gold as he searched and searched, knowing that his father was there, just waiting for him. “Lucifer,” Jack whispered as he found the archangel. 

“Hello Jack,” Lucifer replied, his hand on Jack’s shoulder as the young nephilim turned, a harsh intake of breath whistling through his teeth. 

“Oh god,” Jack said, Lucifer’s infection in his mind disappearing, clearing his thoughts as he realised what he’d done, what he’d been tricked into doing. 

“Not yet,” Lucifer replied, his arms around his son’s shoulders. 

“What have I done?” Jack whispered, taking a step back, backing away from Lucifer. 

“You brought me back, son,” Lucifer replied with a serpentine smirk. “You did exactly as I knew you would.” 

“No, no I… I didn’t mean to…” Jack said. 

“But you did!” Lucifer said with a gleeful laugh. “You took my sword, which held part of my grace, and you took it as your own! You accepted it! You let me in, and you let me influence your thoughts. You did this, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Jack growled. 

“But you are,” Lucifer countered. “You are, and you brought me back. Of course, I need that little extra bit of grace, so I’ve taken it back. Of course, you have returned to your original puppy dog persona, but I’m sure we can rectify that.”

Jack tried to draw his…  _ Lucifer’s  _ blade, but the archangel summoned it to his own hand with a wave of his hand and a burst of telekinesis. 

“Oh no, none of that,” Lucifer said, his blade pointed at Jack. “I need you to send the Winchesters a message,” he said, coming closer to his son, whom he had frozen in place. “Tell them, that I like this game we play, and tell them that I will not lose to another plaid wearing hunter again. Tell them that I am coming for them.”

With that, Lucifer plunged his blade into Jack’s thigh, flying away and leaving his son to limp back home to the hunters. He knew now how to win, how to break the brothers apart, thanks to watching the world through his son’s eyes; make the brothers chose to surrender, to come to him. 

Make them beg for death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is curious about the sudden loss of chapters, I have simply combined some chapters together because weekly updates require short chapters. I have now got lovely long(ish) chapters for all you lovely people! Yay!


	15. One more job

Jack ran. 

Well, he thought he was running, but it was more of a limp, and it quickly turned to a crawl as his leg grew numb from blood loss. Vision failing, body uncooperative, Jack was so tired. He just needed to sleep… 

No. No he had to get back. He had to warn Mary. He had to tell her that Lucifer was coming, and that even if she managed to get Sam and Dean back they would be in danger. He had to… he really needed to sleep. He had to stop, to rest for a moment, to just take a minute for his body to recover. Yes. He needed that. He just had to… lie… down…

 

~

 

Dean sat there with half the bottle down his throat, the other half well on its way. He was done. He had been happy dead, he had wanted to die, and yet he wasn’t. Why? Because he was in Heaven. 

He didn’t deserve it. 

Maybe Billie had messed up, maybe she had wanted to punish him by giving him what he knew he could never deserve, maybe she wanted to make him relive memories of his brother - of what he had destroyed - over and over. Whatever it was, Dean didn’t care. He deserved Hell. He deserved a thousand, a million, years on the rack. He deserved the torture, and yet he wanted the Empty purely so that no one could bring him back. Again. 

Oh God. 

Another swallow. 

What had he done? What had he caused? 

His brother, a demon and now back in the Cage. His mother, hellbound. His… Cas… Cas… gone. Jack, ruined. He destroyed everything he loved, and he didn’t deserve to be back. 

Another drink. 

There had been a time that he would have, possibly, considered what would become of his health… maybe Sam… maybe Sam would have told him to stop and think, or given him that bitch face he always wore… used to wear. 

Not now. Now, he prayed for death, for the end, for someone to make it stop. 

“If you think that death by alcohol poisoning is the right way to go, you’d better reconsider,” Billie said, standing across from Dean. 

“Why?” The hunter asked, the residual grace from Michael keeping him from being too drunk. 

“Well, you have a role to play, for one,” Billie replied, her voice betraying exactly what she thought of the hunter. 

“Am I going to begin the end of the world?” Dean asked. “Oh wait, done that. Am I going to kill everyone I love? Wait, done that to. Am I going to  ruin everything? Been there, done that.”

“What happened to the Winchester bravado that you always have? The one that causes the balance of the universe to be upset every time something doesn’t go your way?” Billie asked, her head tilted to the side. 

“Check the Cage. Or the Empty. Or maybe Hell’s crossroad deals list. I’m sure you’ll find it there.”

“What happened to you?” Billie asked, shaking her head slowly and pursing her lips. 

“Michael,” Dean grunted in reply.  “Why are you here, anyway?” 

“Because I have a job for you.”

“I don’t want it,” Dean replied, standing so suddenly that his chair fell over, landing on the ground with a harsh clatter. 

“You will take it,” Billie slowly said, “because I saved you an eternity in the Empty specifically for this.”

“You did this on purpose?” Dean exclaimed, coming around the table and invading her space, his face right up against hers as a threat. 

“Yes.” A simple reply, unconcerned with what she had caused. 

“Why?” His voice cracked on that one word.  _ Why?  _ The question behind his whole life. The question never answered. 

“You had some pretty great deaths ahead of you, Dean, and yet the moment  you said ‘yes’ they all changed. All of them involved something you caused bringing about the end of days.” Pulling a black book from the folds of her coat, Billie held it out for Dean to take. “All of them, except this one, changed.” Handing it over, Dean never expected such a slim book to hold so much weight. “This is the only viable outcome for the world. I suggest you use it wisely.”   
“But Michael is gone… isn’t he?” Dean asked with sudden trepidation. 

“Yes, but there are other forces at work thanks to what you did. I suggest that you get to work.” She was about to leave, when one last thought crossed her mind. “Oh, and I suggest you head north; there’s a nephilim about to die in an abandoned church.”

“Jack,” Dean whispered, taking off at a run, all thoughts of his own lack of self worth gone from his mind. 

“There’s that Winchester bravado,” Billie said with a smile, before disappearing herself as she heard the bunker door close. 

 

~

 

He didn’t take any pleasure in his first ride back in the impala. He didn’t consider what condition it was in or how his baby remembered him. 

He only cared about Jack, about his son, and how his life was on the line. 

North, he had to race north, as fast as possible.  _ Jack Jack Jack Jack.  _ He had to save him.  _ Jack Jack Jack Jack.  _

The church came into view eventually, the seconds ticking by too quickly, reminding him of what he had to lose. He couldn’t lose anyone else. He couldn’t lose Jack. Not his son. Not his Jack. 

“Jack!” Dean cried, finding the boy collapsed outside, a pool of blood surrounding him. “It’s ok, it’s going to be ok,” he said, carrying Jack bridal style to the car and carefully laying him down on the back seat. He took off at breakneck speeds, racing back to the bunker and carrying Jack in with cries for help. 

“Dean? What’s wrong?” Mary asked, entering their sick bay, Rowena just behind her.  “Oh my,” Mary said, spinning to Rowena. “Fix it,” she demanded. 

“Yes, anything else? Maybe your own country perhaps?” Rowena asked, rolling her eyes. “I hope you’re aware that I will be charging for all this,” she called back as she left the room to get her bag, returning with it and pulling candles and other witchy voodoo from it. With some magic words and a flash of purple light, Jack sat up with a gasp, eyes wide and breath coming quickly as he grasped a hold of the nearest person - Mary. 

“He’s back,” he gasped, eyes wild. “Lucifer is back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this character thinking I was one from the end... I'm not. Every time I think I am, something else makes itself into a plot hole. Great.


	16. Take my hand

Silence. No one spoke, no one breathed. Silence. 

“What do you mean, Lucifer is back?” Mary asked, hoping that her ears were broken. 

“I think it’s bloody clear!” Rowena exclaimed. “The boy has pulled a Winchester special and brought back the devil himself! Way to go, you’re a true Winchester Jack.” Slowly clapping, Rowena couldn’t hide the shaking of her hands, or the way her voice had trembled when she said the devil’s name. 

“Whatever happened, it wasn’t his fault,” Dean growled, slamming his hand on the table. Rowena shut up, her fear too great to let her argue back. 

“Well, I think we need to start with how,” Mary said, trying to placate the group, her own fear under control; she had spent time walking through apocalypse world with Lucifer to know to fear him, but also to know that he could be stopped. “Jack, what happened?” 

“He… he tricked me,” Jack admitted, his hands fisted in the bed sheets. “When we went for his sword… I hadn’t realised that it was a part of his grace. I should have, but I didn’t, and I accepted the grace, and he used it to… to become strong again.” 

“He used your regrowing grace to feed his own,” Rowena said, sighing as she sat down. “Your grace regrows faster than his own, because you’re young, and he had his grace feed on your regeneration energy to grow his own. It’s why your grace didn’t grow back - he used it all for himself.” 

“So… so he… was it my fault?” Jack asked, tears coming to the young boy’s eyes.

“No,” Mary and Dean immediately chorused, both of them not leaving any space for doubt. 

“Jack, none of this was your fault,” Mary said, coming forward and placing her hands on his shoulders. 

“But- but I brought Lucifer back! He couldn’t have done it without me.”   
“And if you hadn’t done it he would have found another way.” Dean didn’t leave any room to argue, his words firmer than any before. This wasn’t Jack’s fault. He hadn’t known what he was getting into. Besides, none of it would have happened if he’d not said ‘yes’. Everything that had happened was on his shoulders.

“Well well, this is such a touching scene,” a sneering voice said from behind the group. They all turned to find the demon from before  - the king of Hell - standing right where he had appeared upon his summoning. “But I have Hell to run, and I would rather not waste time considering the blame. You’re Winchesters; it’s all of your faults. Every time.” With a snap of his fingers, the five beings found themselves in a familiar setting; it was the same place that Rowena had cast a spell to let Sam into the Cage all those years ago. Thankfully, the demmon was helpful enough to have also brought Rowena’s spells and supplies, allowing them to get on with their task. “If you release an archangel, all of you will die,” the king threatened, taking a step back to watch as Rowena began. 

The space was almost fogged over, screams of the other souls almost non existent in the near silent space… and yet one drifted to their ears from time to time. For Rowena they were a reminder of what - who - she had lost. For Jack, they were what his blood father had created. For Dean… they were his nightmares, always in the back of his mind, always present. But for Mary the screams were what she knew was coming for her, what she had willingly signed up for… it hadn’t seemed real though until that moment. 

_ I am going to die,  _ she thought, jaw tight as Rowena began to chant.  _ I am going to die and be tortured until I become something for my sons to hunt. I am going to Hell.  _

Dean, seeming to understand his mother’s thoughts, took her hand in his own and held it tight. He didn’t speak, he just stood there. He was a pillar of strength that Mary was grateful for. 

With a final word, a blast of power resonated through the space, the mist clearing to reveal a cage. Not  _ the  _ Cage, but a holding cell, just as it had been the first time. And in the centre, kneeling on the floor, wearing nothing but chains, was Samuel Winchester. 

 

Xxx

 

It had been years. 

Michael hadn’t allowed him to have any way to keep track of the time, but Sam knew it had been years. Years of torture and comfort, of pain and peace. 

There were some things that he had never told Dean, such as how he wasn’t allowed to speak English in the archangels’ presence; it was Enochian or nothing, and if Sam hadn’t had the wall in his mind he would have never been able to speak in any language but Enochian after leaving the Cage for the first time. 

Then there was how he had spent the majority of close to two centuries chained at the archangels’ feet, his dignity shredded and pride destroyed almost completely. ALmost; he always managed to keep enough to fight on, to oppose orders from time to time. He was able to hold his mouth shut and keep from screaming for hours, just to spite Lucifer. He could refuse to beg, and he would take the beatings that followed without a sound. He had refused to break completely. 

But now… now he wasn’t even human, and he didn’t deserve to have any pride left at all. He deserved his torture and he deserved the constant state of fear he lived in. He deserved to lose his language and identity. He deserved to be stripped down and bound in chains, and he deserved to beg at Michael’s feet. He wasn’t Sam Winchester. He was Sammy, Michael’s bitch. 

“Come along Sammy,” Michael crooned, Sam crawling over to the archangel so that they could pet his hair, so that they could dehumanize him even more than he had already. After all, why not?

“Yes sir,” Sam replied, the enochian slipping off his tongue with ease.  

He crawled to Michael’s feet, setting back on his heels with a soft thud, his head bowed and black eyes closed. 

That was another thing - he had to keep his eyes black at all times, just to make sure that he knew what he was, that he knew his place. 

As if he could forget. 

Sam sat there, waiting for an order, for pain, for comfort. He waited, but it never came. 

Instead, a rush of magic and a sudden gust of wind swept through the Cage, and Sam found himself in a cage much smaller than the other. And even better, there was no archangel to torture him. 

Or maybe there was. This wouldn’t be the first time that Michael had used his dreams against him, although it had been a long time since Sam had last been a victim to the mind games… at least a year, if not two. He dared not raise his head, lest it was a trick; he didn’t want to be punished for disobedience. 

“Sam,” a soft voice said. A familiar voice. It was friendly and nice and kind, but with a hard edge underneath. It was a car’s growling engine and whiskey and gun oil. It was home, and it was Dean. 

It was cruel, and a trick, and a torture in his brain from Michael. 

“Sam, can you hear me?” The voice asked, and Sam nodded his head to confirm; he had learnt the hard way that answering, even with the wrong answer, was worse than keeping quiet. “Can you look at me, please?”

Raising his head, Sam found Dean pressed up against the Cage bars, his hand outstretched, passing through the twisted walls so that, if he reached out, Sam could take it. 

“Sam, Sammy, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry, but it’s me. It’s really me,” the not Dean said, tears slipping down his face as he looked into Sam’s demonic eyes.  _ My fault my fault my fault,  _ over and over, a loop in Dean’s head. “It’s really me, Sammy,” he repeated.

But Sam just shook his head, trying to drown out his brother’s voice. He shook his head, dropping off his ankles to sit on the floor, his knees brought up to his chest as he rocked back and forward. 

_ Not real. He’s not here. He can’t be here. He’s not here. Not real.  _

“Sammy,” Dean repeated, his voice as light as a feather as it passed Sam’s ears. “Sam, I’ve come to get you out.” 

_ Not real. Not real. He’s not real. He can’t hurt you if you stay still, if you don’t move.  _

“Sam, I need you to take my hand. Please. We don’t have much time. I need you to take my hand, and I need you to hold tight. I’m going to get you out of here.” Rocking harder and faster, Sam began to whisper under his breath a mantra of ‘ _ not real’.  _

“This is real, Sammy,” Dean whispered, voice cracking on the words, especially when he realised how lost Sam had let himself become.  _ My fault,  _ was all Dean could think. “Please, just take my hand.” He had barely a few minutes to reach his brother, to make him believe it was really him.

But reciting their best memories didn’t work; Michael had access to those. Inside jokes didn’t work; there was a third person now in on them. Soft words were worthless, and anything louder brought soft whimpers.

He had less than a minute. He was running out of ideas. 

“Sam take my hand,” Dean said, voice hardening into a command. “Samuel Winchester take my hand.” It was his last hope. “Sam Winchester take my hand right now,” he finally growled as the last ten seconds began to tick away.

_ Torture from obedience or from not?  _ Sam thought, his mind whirring a thousand miles an hour as he tried to decide which was worse. Take his hand as an attempt to leave and be punished for that, or disobey and be punished for not following orders? Neither had their positives. 

But in the end… in the end one won out. 

Sam took his brother’s hand as the spell dissipated, and he was pulled from the Cage hopefully for the last time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking two or three chapters left? Yeah?


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we are left with one more chapter... one final chapter to round up the whole story... yeah that won't work will it? ;)

Dean didn’t believe it; it had worked. He had Sam. He was bringing him home. 

“Sam,” his mum cried as Sam appeared, still holding Dean’s hand, the pair kneeling on the ground at Rowena’s feet. But the moment he heard Mary’s loud cry Sam shuffled away on all fours, his pupils blown thanks to the fear coursing through his veins. Rocking back and forward, no one understood the words the fell off Sam’s lips, his arms hugging his torso tight enough to bruise. 

But no one could keep their eyes of Sam’s pitch black eyes. 

“Sammy,” Dean whispered, slowly walking towards Sam and crouching down, his hand outstretched as if to help him, but Sam only flinched at the gesture. “Sammy please, it’s me, Dean. Your brother.”

But only those incomprehensible words fell off his tongue. 

“What’s he saying?” Jack asked, head cocked to the side the same way Cas always used to do. Dean almost lost it at the sight. 

“Something in Enochian,” Rowena remarked, trying to catch a word here and there but ultimately failing. 

“But, but why?” Dean asked, tears filling his eyes. 

“It’s the language of the angels, and he’s just spent however many years at the mercy of one. I’m surprised he has only lost his mind.” Rowena really had chosen the wrong thing to say, but she couldn’t have shown them just how badly she had been affected by the broken demonic Winchester. 

“You shut your mouth!” Dean spat, standing and pushing the witch within seconds. At the same time Sam started to scream. 

Dean had heard humans beg for their lives and monsters scream as they died. He’d heard the screams of the souls under his knife in hell and the dying cries of angels. 

He had never heard anything as blood curdling as his brother’s scream in that moment. And he wouldn’t stop. 

Hands over his ears, onyx eyes clenched shut, Sam tore his throat apart with every passing second, his screams echoing through every layer of Hell. 

“SAMMY STOP!” Dean screamed, throwing as much of his father as possible into the order.

And it worked. It bloody worked. “Stand up Sam,” Dean ordered, though his voice was much softer this time. 

Nothing. 

“Stand up Sammy,” Mary ordered, and Sam stood, his head bowed and eyes on the floor. He didn’t show any signs of embarrassment at his lack of clothes, nor any discomfort from the chains around his neck, wrists, and ankles. He was like a shell of the man he had once been.

“Sammy,” Dean said, picking up on what his mother had done to provoke a reaction. “Sammy I want you to tell me who you think I am,” Dean said, the order clear but not at all harsh. 

He didn’t understand the enochian that Sam replied in. Dean repeated the question, but adding “in English” on the end. 

“You are Michael.” 

“Who am I possessing?” Dean asked, trying to find out what Sam knew. 

“I mustn’t speak his name,” Sam whispered, shaking his head hard enough to lose brain cells. “I mustn’t say his name! I mustn’t say his name!” 

“Sammy stop!” Dean yelled, and Sam immediately stopped, as if a switch had been flipped. Immediately he returned to his servant like state. 

“Do you need me to show you the door?” The King of Hell asked from behind the group, all but Sam whirling round to face the demon… the other demon. 

“I don’t thi-” Mary began, but the King snapped his fingers and the group found themselves back in the bunker, right where they had began. 

“What now?” Jack asked, looking to Dean for answers. 

“Now… now we cure him.”

 

Xxx

 

They didn’t even have to tie him down. Dean ordered Sam to sit still, and  Sam sat still. Dean ordered him to bare his neck, and Sam did. 

For eight hours, eight agonising hours, Dean sat by Sam’s side. He held his hand the whole time, apologising time and time again, or he was telling him of all the places they were going to go, and the holiday they would take. “I’ll even take you to disneyland,” Dean said with a laugh, remembering all the times Sam had begged as a child but had been ignored.

For eight hours Sam sat there, emotionless and black eyed, not making any sound. Dean had tried to give him clothes, but the chains only got in the way, and every time he touched them Sam let out a small whimper. 

Even after the fourth dose, when tears started to track paths down his cheeks, Sam remained silent. It made Dean’s heart shatter, made him despise his actions and himself even more;  _ he  _ had done this.  _ He  _ had poured demon blood down his brother’s throat.  _ He  _ had been the one to throw his brother into the Cage. 

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. 

“Sammy,” Dean said at last once administering the final dose, the demonic eyes fading and his soul returning to human as a blinding light lit his body up like a christmas tree. Sam didn’t even flinch. “Sammy, how are you feeling?”

“I…” Sam started, but he hesitated, realising that the once empty pit inside him was no longer quite so empty… it was filled with guilt. “I killed them,” he whispered, thinking back all those years, back when he had drained a mountain of bodies dry, when he had ripped through human hosts and devoured their flesh, when he had been a human monster. 

He still was a human monster. 

“Who?” Dean asked, but he quickly remembered. “No, Sammy, that wasn’t your fault. It was mine.” 

“Yes sir,” Sam replied, slipping back into Enochian. 

“English,” Dean ordered, and Sam flinched, his huge shoulders coming up to his ears in self defence, waiting for the blows to follow. 

But they didn’t come. 

“Yes sir,” Sam whispered, his voice cracking on the second syllable. 

“Sam, I’m your brother. You don’t need to call me sir.” 

“Sorry si- sorry,” Sam replied, once again flinching as he expected to be flayed for his mistake. 

“You don’t need to say sorry, Sam,” Dean said, pulling Sam into a hug to stop him from seeing his tears. 

“What do you want to do now?” Sam asked, not reciprocating Dean’s actions. “Shall I get the knives or whips?” 

“No,” Dean replied, shoving his brother away in shock, terrified of what he was implying. “I will never hurt you Sam.”

“Sam?” The other asked, eyes widening. “I am not Sam.” 

“Yes, you are,” Dean urged. “Your name is Sam Winchester, you are my brother, and I love you.”

“I am not your Sammy?” Sam asked, breath hitching. 

“No, you are my brother Sam, and I am Dean. Michael is dead. You have to believe me.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to believe that he was free, that Michael was dead, because then Michael would reveal that this was all some hallucination, that he was still in the Cage, and he would be tortured for breaking the rules. 

But then he would also be punished for disobeying orders… at least if he played along he would get some reprieve, even if for a moment only. 

“I am Sam Winchester, your brother, and you are Dean.” He even smiled to try and drive the act home. 


	18. Is this real?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter... let's do this

Sam walked and talked and smiled and laughed throughout that first week of returning. But Dean’s Sam, the real Sam, didn’t smile like that, didn’t laugh like that, didn’t behave like that. Dean’s Sam would have wanted to talk about things and Dean’s Sam didn’t smile like he had no cares in the world. Dean’s Sam wasn’t  _ happy,  _ and that hurt the elder Winchester more than anything. 

Except even though Dean didn’t have  _ his  _ Sam, he was getting there; the man cared and tried to help others. He read books and used his laptop to look at boring things that weren’t porn. He talked to Jack and Mary, and he even stopped calling Dean ‘Master’ and ‘Sir’. Except… except he didn’t eat unless forced, and he didn’t ask about where Cas was, and he didn’t ask why Mary was so disheartened or what had happened to Michael. He walked the corridors at night to avoid sleeping lest the nightmares returned, and he flinched whenever someone spoke to him or asked him to do something. He still waited for the hallucination to end, and he still expected to be beaten every time he turned his back. He still thought he was in the Cage, and yet he never said a word.

“Sam, Sammy,” Dean said as he walked into his brother’s room. He bore a sandwich and a glass of water, hoping that if he sat with Sam then the boy would eat something. “I brought you some food,” he said, sitting at the end of Sam’s bed as the other man brought his knees to his chest, hands shaking as Dean got closer. 

“Thank you,” Sam replied, eyes lowered. He took the plate though, which was a huge improvement. 

“Do you want some water?” Dean asked once Sam ate the food, and the man nodded as he reached out for the glass. His hand shook though, and a drop spilled on the bed covers. 

It was a drop of water. Just a drop. It was nothing to Dean. 

It was everything for Sam. 

The man was immediately in the corner, his knees pulled up and hands covering his head as he rocked back and forward, enochian spilling out of his mouth.

“Sam,” Dean whispered, trying to force the tears from his eyes. “Sam it’s just water. Sammy please stop.” 

Sam didn’t stop. In fact he started screaming. He screamed, and he screamed, and he screamed. 

“Sammy,” Dean whispered. But it wasn’t Sam screaming, not anymore, not to Dean. To him he was hearing the dying scream of an angel, the one whose wings had been seared across his chest only for Michael to heal him. The angel whom he had loved and murdered because he wasn’t strong enough. It was the souls in hell, the ones whom he had tortured in his ten years over the rack. It was everyone he had failed to save, and everyone he had lost. 

It was his brother screaming the way an animal would when it was utterly terrified. 

He stumbled out the room, leaving his brother to his mother, Jack, and Rowena, who had rushed to the source of the noise as fast as possible. 

“Dean,” Mary said, grabbing his shoulder to try and help him, but Dean had just shrugged her off and run down to the basement; he just couldn’t get his brother’s screams out of his head, couldn’t bear to see what he had done, what he was responsible for. 

He ripped the ingredients to summon an angel off the shelves, and his vision blurred as he lit the bowl, trying with all his might to pull the one person who could fix this mess to the bunker, the one person who could help him; Cas. 

It didn’t work. He did it again. It still failed. He still tried. He still failed. 

He always failed. 

Finally the tears fell, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor; he was just so tired, so so tired. He couldn’t keep going, and he couldn’t keep watching people die because of him. 

“Cas,” he whispered, the name but a plea on his lips. “Cas I’m so sorry. Cas, please come back. Please. Please come back Cas.” 

Raising his hand to his shoulder, Dean pressed it into the skin where the angel’s handprint had once been burned into his flesh. Cas had mentioned, again and again, that they had shared a profound bond. Except as the handprint disappeared, so did the angel’s words, and along with it went the hum of energy he’d felt on his shoulder whenever he was around the angel. 

He hadn’t realised until too late that that hum, that bond between them, was because Cas had given some of his grace to heal his soul, to save him before he even knew him. He had been blind, and it had been the worst mistake he’d ever made. 

“Cas, please, just comeback one last time. Just once more. For me.” He prayed with everything he had to everyone he could think of. He prayed to Cas and to God, Billie and even Amara. He just needed Cas. 

“Dean,” a gravelly voice replied from behind the man. “Dean open your eyes.” 

He couldn’t. He couldn’t look because he knew that if he did then he would lose what hope he had. He knew that if he opened his eyes he would find the one being who he longed to see, and then he would lose him. He knew that it couldn’t be real, because he was a Winchester, and Winchesters were cursed to never have anything good for long.  

“Dean,” that voice, that beautiful voice, said once again, a hand on his cheek and another gripping his shirt. “Dean, open your eyes.” He pressed his hand to Dean’s shoulder, feeling the grace that resided in Dean’s soul flare up as its owner touched it. 

_ Screw it,  _ Dean thought as his green eyes flew open, meeting the crystal and ethereal blue of Castiel’s. 

“Cas,” he whispered, clutching at the angel’s sleeves, pulling him closer, needing to know this was real. “Cas, how are you alive?” 

“If Jack can bring me back, why can’t you?” The angel asked with a small smile. 

“I’m just human,” Dean replied, his hand cupping Cas’ face.

“No, you’re not. You’re a Winchester, and we share a profound bond that even reaches through the Empty.” Dean’s breath caught in his throat as Cas leant in, as his angel’s lips met his, as he finally kissed the angel as himself because he wanted to and not because he was forced. 

“You’re real?” Dean asked, just needing to hear the confirmation.

“I am.”

 

Xxx

 

Mary finally managed to get Sam to stop screaming, to stop thinking that he was going to be beaten for a single drop of water. 

“Sam?” Dean asked as he stood in the room door, Cas right by his side. 

Cas. Castiel. The angel. The  _ dead  _ angel. 

Michael had never shown Sam Cas, because Sam had known that Cas was dead; he would never believe it if he saw Cas, never believe that he had been taken out. Cas was never in Sam’s hell… which meant that Sam couldn’t be in Hell. 

“Cas?” Sam asked, eyes wide and voice barely louder than a whisper. “Cas is that really you?”

“Yes, Sam,” Cas replied, struggling to see Sam reduced to this, to the shaking husk before him, ruined once again by his elder brother. 

“You’re alive,” Jack whispered, coming forward to hug the man. 

“Well I do believe that none of us enjoy staying dead for long,” Cas replied, but he stopped speaking when Sam got to his feet, taking slow steps towards the man. 

Sam took another step, his mind running a thousand miles per second, but all coming to the same conclusion; he couldn’t be in the Cage. He couldn’t be with Michael. He was alive. Pulling Cas into his arms, Sam held on tight. “This is real,” he whispered into the trenchcoated angel’s shoulder, “this really is real.” 

“Yes Sam,” Cas replied. “It is.”

“I am out?” 

“Yes you are,” Dean replied, clapping Sam on the shoulder. He still flinched, but he no longer had a half dead look in his eyes. He was out. 

He wasn’t perfect, he was nowhere near back to normal, but he was out. 

He was free. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam, Dean, Mary, Cas, Jack, and Rowena all sat at the war table, each of them surrounded by multiple bottles of beer. They laughed, they smiled, they talked, and they pretended that they were fine. 

They pretended that Sam wasn’t suffering from his torture, that he didn’t hear screams instead of laughs and that the walls weren’t made of flame and blood. They pretended that Dean didn’t have crippling guilt, and that Jack wasn’t terrified of what his father would do. They pretended that Mary wasn’t on her way to hell, and that they were just one big family. 

They pretended that the bunker door didn’t creep open…

They tried not to notice the thundering steps that clashed on the metal stairs. 

They couldn’t ignore the man who stood before them, even though he looked nothing like when they’d last seen him. 

“Sammy, do you want to speed this up and say ‘yes’ now? Or shall we do this the hard way?” Lucifer asked, smirking at the Winchesters, just dreaming of what it would be like to have his new vessel’s hands drenched in Winchester blood. 

Nick, having been destroyed by Michael, was no longer a  feasible option, and so a temporary vessel would just have to hold him until Sam said one word;  _ yes.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all those who stuck with me this far.... thank you, and I hope you lose sleep over what might happen next ;)


End file.
